This volume forms part of a series of publications on contemporary sociologists. The work of each scholar chosen, in this case Anthony Giddens, is internationally recognised and is relevant to the core of the discipline in the 1990s, is thematic in coverage and is, at one and the same time, consensus-generating. The book is divided into three parts:- the first provides a general introduction to Giddens work, the second contains nine sets of paired contributions covering the main themes of Giddens's writings, and the third consists of Giddens's comments, written in the summer of 1989, on some of the main criticisms of his work advanced in part two. He also presents his current thinking on four important questions raised by structuration theory. The volume concludes with biographical details about the contributors, an outline intellectual biography of Anthony Giddens and a consolidated bibliography.