This measured and thoughtful book provides a comprehensive critical commentary on Bauman's social theory. It explores the roots of his ideas in questions of capital and labour, and explains how these ideas flourished in Bauman's later writings on culture, intellectuals, utopia, the holocaust, modernity and postmodernism. Bauman's work has been wide-ranging and ambitious. This book fulfils the objective of providing an authoritative critical guide to this essential thinker.