Seattle Book

Compared to Zygmunt Bauman's book about globalization this one is very light, indeed Gidden's books seems to have become shorter and shorter after his rise to prominence as one of the persons that shaped the third way politics of Tony Blair's regime.

The chapter about risk can be seen as a short introduction to the work of Ulrich Beck on Risk society and the chapter about the transformation of family and relationships is just a condensed version of Gidden's book The Transformation of Intimacy.

Giddens is a bit vague in presenting empirical evidence for his views here since the book is a transcription of his Reith lectures and one could easily critique him for the fact that many of the transformations he mentions are not necessarily connected to globalization per se.

But it is a short read and a very basic introdution to globalization studies but one should remember that this is the political Giddens speaking, rather than Giddens the sociologist. Read it and then move on to other, more advanced stuff if you like.