Conversations with Ulrich Beck

"Every now and then a new way of thinking about the social world occurs. And once that happens it is difficult to imagine how sociology had managed without that new way of thinking. ....Ulrich Beck's concept of risk society ...was a kind of revelation. It provided for sociology a way of speaking of the physical world and of its risks that brought in a striking array of new topics. In effect it enabled people to speak of things, indeed in a way to "see" things, that they had been trying to speak of and to see, but the where the concepts had been chronically lacking." John Urry, Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University