Can sociology survive the face of developments resulting from postmodernism? Comprehensive and timely, Postmodernization examines this critical question through these resulting developments in six areas: the collapse of culture into a postcultural cafeteria of packaged "styles''; the erosion of the state; the fragmentation and multiplication of the familiar class and gender categories of modernity; a decline in allegiance to traditional political parties; the development of flexible manufacturing systems which reprofessionalize labor and reduce the scale of bureaucracies; and a diminishing confidence in the capacity of science to solve human problems which delegitimates it and raises the possibility of its absorption into technology.