This liquid modern world of ours, like all liquids, cannot stand still and keep its shape for long. Everything keeps changing - the fashions we follow, the events that intermittently catch our attention, the things we dream of and things we fear. And we, the inhabitants of this world in flux, feel the need to adjust to its tempo by being ‘flexible' and constantly ready to change. We want to know what is going on and what is likely to happen, but what we get is an avalanche of information that threatens to overwhelm us. How are we to sift the information that really matters from the heaps of useless and irrelevant rubbish? How are we to derive meaningful messages from senseless noise?

We face the daunting task of trying to distinguish the important from the insubstantial, distil the things that matter from false alarms and flashes in the pan.

Nothing escapes scrutiny so stubbornly as the ordinary things of everyday life, hiding in the light of deceptive and misleading familiarity. To turn them into objects of attention and scrutiny, they must first be torn out from that daily routine: the apparently familiar must be made strange. This is precisely what Zygmunt Bauman seeks to do in these 44 letters: each tells a story drawn from ordinary lives, but tells it in order to reveal an extraordinariness that we might otherwise overlook. Arresting, revealing, disconcerting, these snapshots of life by the most brilliant analyst of our liquid modern world will appeal to a wide readership.

齐格蒙·鲍曼（1926-），当代世界最著名的社会家与哲学家之一，英国当代杰出的社会学家安东尼·吉登斯说，“他（齐格蒙）用非凡的才华和创造力，提出了一个所有人都必须认真对待的立场”。生于波兰，曾任华沙大学社会系教授，1968年离开波兰，1969－1971年在特拉维夫和海法大学任教，后前往英国，任利兹大学终身教授。主要著作有《阐释学与社会科学》（1987）、《现代性与大屠杀》（1989）、《现代性与矛盾》（1991）、《后现代性其不满》（1997）、《全球化：人类后果》（1998）。

编辑推荐

齐格蒙·鲍曼被公认为当代最重要的世界性思想家之一。以苏联解体为标志，他的社会学研究分为两个阶段：前一阶段他重在研究现代性与极权主义的辩证关系，后一阶段他则反思后现代主义与消费主义的交集。《现代性与大屠杀》是他之前最为著名的作品。

英国当代杰出的社会学家安东尼·吉登斯对其非常推崇，认为“他（齐格蒙）用非凡的才华和创造力，提出了一个所有人都必须认真对待的立场”。

鲍曼的思想写作主要为社会学领域，但是其影响广阔深远，他的思想渗透到艺术、人类学、政治学、伦理学、媒介传播、神学、哲学各个领域。

他所提出的“液态现代性”理论体系影响了20世纪后期以降的人类社会研究。借用“液体”这个比喻，他准确而又形象地抓住了高度个体化、全球化的当代社会那种流动性强、变动不居的特征。

重要评荐

……鲍曼在金融危机来临之前就看到了现代社会的“连续的危急性”；而这一切可完全上不了推特。

——英国《卫报》书评

他（齐格蒙）用非凡的才华和创造力，提出了一个所有人都必须认真对待的立场。

——英国当代杰出的社会学家安东尼·吉登斯