ABSTRACT
Anthony Giddens (born 1938) is unarguably the most significant social theorist in postwar Britain, at the very forefront of producing an “outstanding indigenous sociology’ (Anderson, 1990:52). Giddens’ ambition is both to recast social theory and to re-examine our understanding of the development and trajectory of ‘modernity’. It is not the aim of this chapter to assess Giddens’ oeuvre. Instead, what I should like to do is take from his book The Nation State and Violence (1985) several ideas which I think help us to see the development and significance of information in an illuminating way. I had better say also that I intend to take off from some of Giddens’ work since, from a review of several of his ideas, I shall extend freely into other authors’ views and empirical work which he himself leaves alone.
