Anthony Giddens

Abstract

As if by intuition, Anthony Giddens has always gravitated to the intersecting strengths of theoretical positions. As early as Capitalism and Social Theory which helped bring Marx into the sociological mainstream in 1971, Giddens proposed that for all of their differences Marx, Durkheim and Weber address a common agenda of problems in the analysis of modern society.¹ More recently, as centrifugal forces have carried bits and pieces of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber (and others) to far-flung extremes, Giddens has managed to write with theoretical originality as he pulls ideas out of distant orbits back to intellectual common ground. In Beyond Left and Right, he enlists philosophic conservatism in support of what is generally regarded as a left-wing ideological agenda.² In Modernity and Self-identity, he tempers postmodernist pessimism and cynicism with sociological realism by transposing apparently intractable philosophical dilemmas from philosophy and the arts to problems actors deal with pragmatically in their everyday lives.³