Thomas Etzemüller (ed.)
The Order of Modernity
Social Engineering in the 20th Century



366 p., paperback, numerous illustrations, € 29.80
ISBN 978-3-8376-1153-3 (Bielefeld: transcript, 2009)

At the beginning of the 20th century, modern industrialised societies found themselves in a deep crisis. The world became ambiguous, social relationships seemed to be disintegrating. Social engineering was one way of overcoming the negative consequences of "ambivalent modernity". Social relationships were to be reconfigured through the systematic reorganisation of the lifeworld and everyday practices. This volume examines social engineering as a specifically transnational formation for organising modernity by subjecting people to a biopolitical regime - without necessarily ending in annihilation.

H-Soz-u-Kult, January 2010

Perspectives No. 11, Summer 2010

AfS, 2010 (in a collective review)

NPL, 2010 (in a collective review)

VSWG, 2011