The End of Modernity

ENDORSEMENT BEING SOUGHT FROM READER'S REPORT The End of Modernity Stuart Sim Global financial crisis, global environmental crisis - what connects them? Stuart Sim claims they are both symptoms of the end of modernity, the cultural system that has prevailed in the West from the Enlightenment onwards. In this provocative book, Sim argues that the modern world's insatiable need for technologically-driven economic progress is unsustainable, and potentially destructive of the planet and its socio-economic systems. The new landscape this creates - socially, politically, economically, intellectually - is explored through an interdisciplinary approach, providing a wide-ranging assessment of the collapse of modernity and the challenges it poses us. Sim calls for a radical alteration in our world view and for purposeful changes both to our economic and intellectual life: we need to jettison the free market, rein in conspicuous consumption, reinvigorate public service, and develop talents other than the entrepreneurial if we are to reconstruct our society satisfactorily. Stuart Sim is currently Visiting Professor in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Northumbria University. His books include The Carbon Footprint Wars; A Manifesto for Silence; and Empires of Belief, all published by Edinburgh University Press.

Stuart Sim is retired Professor of Critical Theory at Northumbria University. He has published widely on critical theory, and is a Fellow of the English Association. Amongst his recent publications are The Lyotard Dictionary (2011), Addicted to Profit: Reclaiming Our Lives from the Free Market (2012), Fifty Key Postmodern Thinkers (2013), and, with Brett Wilson and Barbara Hawkins (eds) Art, Science & Cultural Understanding (2014).

There is always a need for clearly written cultural theory that is accessible but tries to identify macro trends using contemporary examples and data. Stuart Sim excels in this kind of informed, politically engaged, sceptical theory which is not infatuated with jargon or mystification. It's grown-up analysis for students of contemporary culture. Sim has authority, is totally on top of the material and has a certain quiet panache. -- Caspar Melville, New Humanist Magazine There is always a need for clearly written cultural theory that is accessible but tries to identify macro trends using contemporary examples and data. Stuart Sim excels in this kind of informed, politically engaged, sceptical theory which is not infatuated with jargon or mystification. It's grown-up analysis for students of contemporary culture. Sim has authority, is totally on top of the material and has a certain quiet panache.