Stjepan G. Mestrovics Anthony Giddens - The Last Modernist - Book Report/Review Example

Due to the fact that a widely industrialized society had taken shape, it was the belief of those individuals and philosophers that it was necessary for a new philosophical dynamic to integrate with these changing realities. As a function of understanding Modernism to a more full and complete level, this brief analysis will discuss and analyze Stjepan G. Mestrovic’s Anthony Giddens: The Last Modernist. Further, by means of such an analysis, it is the hope of this author that the reader will gain a more appreciable and complex understanding of some of the key facets of Modernism and the ways in which it has integrated with society and continues to impact upon the way in which individuals define the reality that they are faced with.

Although several other philosophical movements have come to fruition since Modernism reached its height, the fact of the matter is that many individuals consider the departure from tradition that Modernism offered as one of the keys and most important divergences that philosophy has made within the 19th, 20th or 21st century (Jones, 2008). From the standpoint of this particular analyst, the book itself is something of a one-sided approach. This is due to the fact that even within the title, the reader can note that the author has made something of a value judgment with regards to perhaps the greatest and most influential of the modernist philosophers (Prescott, 2008).

However, in all fairness, Mestrovic also points to the fact that Giddens presents something of a simplified picture of society; representing one of the key drawbacks and pitfalls of the Modernist interpretation. In such a way, Giddens necessarily lacks a complete picture of contemporary popular culture, mass media, psychoanalysis, emotions, or culture with regards to how these particular facets impact upon the definition and understanding of the theory which he presents. In something of an ironic twist, Giddens himself attempts to define and place every aspect of society and humanity into uniquely constructed categories; a clear deviation from what standardized Modernism is esteemed to espouse (Lavine, 1984).