The Risk of Compressed Modernity

“Chang Kyung-Sup has been, throughout his long-distinguished career, one of South Korea’s most influential and sought-after sociologists. While the world’s economists marvelled at the speed of South Korea’s transformation, Chang uncovered a social world of massive inequality, exploitation, corruption, and authoritarianism in a range of publications that were influenced by Ulrich Beck’s notion of ‘risk society.’ Beck was a realist, but not a pessimist. The same might be said of Chang. In times of crisis, he has always looked for ways to improve the lives of ordinary citizens through his creative sociological imagination.”Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University“This book not only illuminates South Korea’s compressed modernity, but extends Ulrich Beck’s cosmopolitan sociology across axes of politics, class, institutions, family, culture, and gender. Chang Kyung-Sup writes for South Koreans and those interested in Beck, but also invites comparisons across East Asia and the world to refigure the catastrophic metamorphosis through which we all live.”Michael D. Kennedy, Brown University

Chang Kyung-Sup is SNU Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Seoul National University.