Book Reviews
| Date | 01 September 2001 |
| DOI | 10.1177/a018605 |
| Published date | 01 September 2001 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
BOOK REVIEWS
BARBARA ADAM, ULRICH BECK AND JOOST VAN LOON (Eds), The Risk Society and
Beyond: Critical Issues for Social Theory. London: Sage, 2000. 232 pp., £16.99 (pbk).
In 1986, Beck published his Risikogesellschaft in German. Six years later Risk Society
was translated into English. The year 2000 saw the publication of a theoretical stock-
taking. The Risk Society and Beyond: Critical Issues for Social Theory attempts to
assess the impact that ideas of risk and reflexive modernity have had on both applied
and more theoretical social research. Edited by Barbara Adam, Ulrich Beck and Joost
van Loon, it contains contributions by some very well known and some less known
writers, and a reply in the form of an essay by Beck himself.
Beck’s essay is a good example of what can happen to an idea (and a writer) during
the course of 15 years and the materialization of massive professional success. Risk
society now has grown into ‘world risk society theory’ (p. 218) and Beck himself has
developed from a relatively unknown German sociologist of organizations and indus-
trial relations into one of the best-known social commentators both inside and outside
academia. What used to be a passionate plea for radical social change in the face of
massive environmental threats to human well-being over the years has been trans-
formed into an all-embracing school of thought (and thinkers) who are busy claim-
ing that all ‘the old categories (like class, family, gender roles, industry, technology,
science, nation state and so on)’ do not hold any analytical value any more (p. 211;
also see Adam, p. 11). This approach is partly to do with Beck’s claim that in risk
society (or shall we say: world risk society theory?)
The concept of risk reverses the relationship of past, present and future. The
past loses its power to determine the present. Its place as a cause of present-day
experience is taken by the future, that is to say, something non-existent, con-
structed and fictitious. (p. 214)
We are supposed to conclude that because the past has lost its relevance, past thinkers
and thoughts, too, cannot meaningfully explain what is happening today. According
to Beck, the only determining force for the present is the future. The past (and thus
inherited structures, inequalities, ideas or philosophies) has become irrelevant. Evi-
dently a theory rejecting any significance of the past must find it difficult to explain
why not all people, groups or societies react in an identical way to supposedly uni-
versal and equalizing risks of late modernity. How come the British happily munched
their beef when the rest of Europe had already banned beef-based products from the
UK? How come the French authorities want to stop Concorde from flying when the
British think this is a hopeless overreaction? How come the Germans seem to be the
‘world champions of angst’ (Alan Scott, p. 33, quoting from Helmut Schmidt)? It is
SOCIAL &LEGAL STUDIES 0964 6639 (200109) 10:1 Copyright © 2001
SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi,
Vol. 10(3), 421–430; 018605
06 Book Reviews (bc/d) 2/8/01 10:16 am Page 421
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