This book offers a sociology of modernity in terms of an historical account of social transformations over the last two centuries. Prologue, Acknowledgements, Principles of Modernity, Modes of Narrating Modernity, Enablement and Constraint: Understanding Modern Institutions, The First Crisis of Modernity, Restricted Liberal Modernity: The Incomplete Elaboration of the Modern Project, Crisis and Transformation of Modernity: The End of the Liberal Utopia, The Closure of Modernity, Networks of Power and Barriers to Entry: The Organization of Allocative Practices, Building Iron Cages: The Organization of Authorative Practices, Discourses on Society: Reorganizing the Mode of Cognitive Representation, The Second Crisis of Modernity, Pluralization of Practices: The Crisis of Organized Modernity, Modernity and Self-Identity: Liberation and Disembedding, Towards Extended Liberal Modernity, Incoherent Practices and Postmodern Selves: The Current Condition of Modernity, Notes, Bibliography, Index.