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Zygmunt Bauman was both an outsider of Western modernity and one of its foremost interpreters. He was an exemplary figure in twentieth-century intellectual work on exile who experienced both Nazi and Soviet forms of totalitarianism.
The first work to draw extensively on Bauman’s personal archive, Zygmunt Bauman and the West argues that the distinctive social thought that sprang from Bauman’s lived experiences of exile amounts to a sustained, sophisticated, and hitherto unappreciated problematization of Eurocentrism and the West. Through an overview of the intellectual’s thought and his contribution to sociology, Jack Palmer explores Bauman’s experience and interpretation of the West and seeks to understand his work in a broader context, outside of the Eurocentric environment from which it was born.
Intervening in a resurgent sociology of intellectuals, Zygmunt Bauman and the West re-evaluates the place of the West in social and political thought.
“This is an immensely erudite and compellingly written book. Palmer convincingly shows how Bauman’s ambivalent positioning and intellectual engagement with respect to the West help account for the interpretation of non-Western historical experiences. Palmer’s reading against the grain is a highly original and inspiring account.” Manuela Boatcă, University of Freiburg and author of Global Inequalities beyond Occidentalism
“This is a brilliant piece of work. It represents the first wave of a second generation engagement with Bauman, twenty years after the first monographs on his work were published. This gives it a fresh and lateral sensibility. You open the book and the conversation begins: brilliant. And it continues all the way through, without flagging.” Peter Beilharz, La Trobe University
“To my knowledge there is no other book on the market with a similar perspective on Bauman’s writings. I regard it as an absolute ‘must read’, for social theorists and students with an interest in the work of Bauman - not least because it provides a refreshing angle on Bauman’s work compared with the existing literature which tends to outline Bauman’s work in a rather chronological manner. Here we engage with a much more complex presentation of Bauman’s perspective.” Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Aalborg University
“If [J.D.] Palmer’s goal was to decolonize Bauman, then he did so masterfully. What he gives us is a thought-provoking text that shows what we can do when we, instead of pigeon-holing thinkers, ideas, or texts into convenient boxes, take a legacy of important conversations and run with them.” Thesis 11
“[J.D.] Palmer's account of Bauman is groundbreaking and … speaks to Bauman's reception today…. [I]t is also notable how Palmer's approach treats the West as a theme throughout Bauman’s whole sociological writing, combining the discussion of culture in the 1960s to his theorisation of his liquid modernity…. It is also an excellent case study in how our increased knowledge of Bauman's biography can be used productively to enrich his sociology.” Thesis 11
“Read Palmer and then (re)read Bauman not only to appreciate the sociology of sociology each offers but to appreciate what intellectual responsibility in this time might mean.” Social Forces