This major study develops a new account of modernity and its relation to the self. Building upon the ideas set out in The Consequences of Modernity, Giddens argues that ‘high’ or ‘late’ modernity is a post-traditional order characterized by a developed institutional reflexivity. In the current period, the globalizing tendencies of modern institutions are accompanied by a transformation of day-to-day social life having profound implications for personal activities. The self becomes a ‘reflexive project’, sustained through a revisable narrative of self-identity. The reflexive project of the self, the author seeks to show, is a form of control or mastery which parallels the overall orientation of modern institutions towards ‘colonising the future’. Yet it also helps promote tendencies which place that orientation radically in question - and which provide the substance of a new political agenda for late modernity.