This book will reconstruct and compare the thought of three contemporary sociologists: Bauman, Elias and Latour. All these three sociologists enjoy great consideration. They have also been subject to critical scrutiny, however, as the substantial secondary literature on them indicates. Their sociological theories and conceptual apparatuses are quite different, but they all deal in one way or another with the themes of modernity and its alternatives. A juxtaposition of these texts may point to distinct definitions of modernity and its alternatives in contemporary sociological theory. The notions of modernity and other related notions such as postmodernity and late modernity are ambiguous, and hence difficult to define. They have been in fact differently interpreted and intended, and the inception of modernity has been inconsistently indicated (cf. Sica 2005). This holds not only for all the major representatives of classical sociology, but also for the most reputed contemporary sociologists.

Bauman, Elias and Latour have been selected here as they have contributed— each of them in his own way— to a redefinition and a new appraisal of modernity, and have pointed to its ambivalent consequences. Other major social theorists have also explored this subject, which may be accordingly considered a central sociological theme. While this work certainly deals with sociological theory, it focuses only on this particular theme as discussed by these three authors. For comparative purposes, however, the contributions of Giddens and Foucault should be also presented here, albeit briefly. For Giddens, “the main problem with the concept of modernity is that it is overgeneralized” (Giddens and Sutton 2014: 12). His definition of this concept lays stress on the “manufactured uncertainty” of modernity (Giddens 1996). By contrast, the discursive formations specific to the modern age are Foucault's central theme. All these authors have then grappled with the theme of modernity, but they have significantly differed in how they have conceived of this notion, and how they have envisaged some of its possible alternatives.