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Social Acceleration

A New Theory of Modernity
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( 359 ratings, 35 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Social Acceleration by Hartmut Rosa offers a critical theory perspective on the temporal structure of modern society. Rosa explores three key types of acceleration: technological advances in transport, communication, and production; rapid social change affecting culture, institutions, and relationships; and the increasing pace of everyday life, counter to expectations that technology would grant more free time. He argues that these accelerations cause a "shrinking of the present," where past experiences lose reliability for anticipating the future, creating a demanding and unstable social environment.
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book suits readers interested in sociology, critical theory, and contemporary social change, especially those curious about the impacts of modern technology and accelerated time on society.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Hartmut Rosa advances an account of the temporal structure of society from the perspective of critical theory. He identifies three categories of change in the tempo of modern social life: technological acceleration, evident in transportation, communication, and production; the acceleration of social change, reflected in cultural knowledge, social institutions, and personal relationships; and acceleration in the pace of life, which happens despite the expectation that technological change should increase an individual's free time.

According to Rosa, both the structural and cultural aspects of our institutions and practices are marked by the "shrinking of the present," a decreasing time period during which expectations based on past experience reliably match the future. When this phenomenon combines with technological acceleration and the increasing pace of life, time seems to flow ever faster, making our relationships to each other and the world fluid and problematic. It is as if we are standing on "slipping slopes," a steep social terrain that is itself in motion and in turn demands faster lives and technology. As Rosa deftly shows, this self-reinforcing feedback loop fundamentally determines the character of modern life.

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  • Social Acceleration
    Hartmut Rosa advances an account of the temporal structure of society from the perspective of critical theory. He identifies three categories of change in the tempo of modern social life: technological acceleration, evident in transportation, communication, and production; the acceleration of social change, reflected in cultural knowledge, social institutions, and personal relationships; and acceleration in the pace of life, which...
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  • Ambivalent Recognition
    Recognition has become one of the key concepts of contemporary critical theory, heralded by thinkers such as Axel Honneth and Charles Taylor. It is widely claimed that a person must be recognized by others in order to realise their own identity and that the lack of recognition constitutes a form of oppression or injustice. Is recognition always a good thing?...
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  • JΓΌrgen Habermas
    JΓΌrgen Habermas is Germany's most important postwar philosopher, the leading figure of the Frankfurt School in this period. He is best known for the concept of the public sphere, which forms the basis of his communicative understanding of democratic politics. Habermas has not only theorized the public sphereβ€”he has also taken part in it through frequent commentary on current social,...
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

A reviewer from Critical Theory Blog initially expected dense, inaccessible philosophy but found the book surprisingly clear and insightful, appreciating Rosa's lucid analysis over abstruse theorising.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780231148351

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 09 June 2015

Country: United States

Imprint: Columbia University Press

Illustration: 13 illus.; 3 Tables

Contributors:

  • Translated by Jonathan Trejo-Mathys

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 229.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 512

About the Author

Hartmut Rosa is professor of sociology and political science at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat Jena. He is the author of Alienation and Acceleration: Towards a Critical Theory of Late-Modern Temporality and coeditor, with William E. Scheuerman, High-Speed Society: Social Acceleration, Power, and Modernity. Jonathan Trejo-Mathys (1979-2014) was assistant professor of philosophy at Boston College.

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