German edition published: Weilerswist : Velbrück, 2000.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [189]-212) and indexes.

Machine generated contents note: List of Tables and Figures vii -- Preface ix -- Acknowledgments xii -- Introduction 1 -- Excursus: Fragility 6 -- 1 The Texture of Modem Societies 9 -- The Nation-state 9 -- Functional Differentiation 11 -- Rationalizing the Irrational 14 -- Traditional and Modem Societies 16 -- The Extension of Social Conduct 18 -- 2 Knowledge Societies 19 -- The Emergence of Knowledge Societies 20 -- The Society of Societies 24 -- 3 Knowledge about Knowledge 31 -- Knowledge as a Capacity for Action 35 -- Culture and Knowledge 36 -- From Capacities to Realization 38 -- Incremental Knowledge 39 -- Knowledge and Information 41 -- Limits to the Power of Knowledge 45 -- Excursus: Forms of Capital 48 -- 4 Fusion through Dissolution 53 -- The Disappearance of Human Agency 54 -- A Surplus of Social Manipulation 55 -- Moral Indifference, Power and Science 58 -- Excursus: Herrschaft kraft Wissen 59 -- 5 Fragile Social Structures 64 -- The World of Post-industrial Societies 65 -- Collective and Individual Capacities to Act 67 -- 6 Governing Knowledge Societies 71 -- The Stalled Society 75 -- The Politics of Knowledge Societies 81 -- Political Action and Knowledgeability 90 -- 7 Fragmentation and Homogenization of Social Life 93 -- The Advent of Mass Societies 93 -- The Globalization of the World 97 -- Globalization in Historical Times 101 -- The Divisions of the World 104 -- The Reconfiguration of the Globe 109 -- 8 Policing Knowledge 112 -- Knowledge Politics 113 -- Regulating Knowledge 114 -- The Social Control of Knowledge Claims in Science 116 -- The Societal Regulation of Knowledge 117 -- The Virchow-Haeckel Controversy 119 -- The Public and Science 123 -- The Developments of Social Controls 124 -- Knowledge Hierarchies and Monopolies 126 -- 9 Emancipation and Knowledge 132 -- The Knowledge/Power Axis 133 -- The New Risks of Knowledge 137 -- Modem Social Movements 140 -- Excursus: Knowing and Risks 143 -- Criticism of the Formal Concept of Risk 144 -- On the Difference between Decision-makers and those -- Affected by Risks of Decisions 145 -- The Return of Uncertainty in Society 146 -- Risk of Decision in the Context of Fragile Knowledge 148 -- 10 Knowledge, Uncertainty and Contingency 150 -- Prospects or what Remains Open 151 -- Statistical Appendix 156 -- Notes 159 -- Bibliography 189 -- Subject Index 213 -- Name Index 216.