ABSTRACT
The work of Alain Tourainc is of major significance in French sociology, through its impact in other realms, such as English-speaking cultural studies, is relatively minor. Bourdieu rules. While the English seem able to enthuse endlessly about Giddens, Beck and Lash, Touraine's work remains overlooked and underused. Touraine's work may well be more challenging — readers of Critique of Modernity may well feel challenged. Touraine's sociology maintains the key strength of French sociology since Durkheim — it focuses on the way economy threatens to eat society up. Plainly, Touraine's purpose in Critique of Modernity is retrospective, big picture stuff. What is surprising in this analysis, perhaps, is that Touraine's drift from the shadow Marxism of social movements takes him in effect into the arms of liberalism, not without a struggle, but to liberalism nevertheless.
