A key idea developed in my work is that historical and sociological analysis is not just about finding out what happened and why it did but is also concerned with what might have happened and what could happen. This perspective entails a concern with future possibility, a topic worked on in my recent book, Senses of the Future: Conflicting Ideas of the Future in the World Today, which explores ideas of the future in the past and new ideas of the future today.

I have written extensively on European history and society with a particular focus on the major transformations that took place in the post-1945 period and again in the post 1989 context of the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a period of global crisis and uncertainty. 

Over a more than thirty-year period, I have published both academic papers as well as books and commentaries for a wider readership on topics such as nationalism, cosmopolitanism, capitalism, the contested legacies of European history. 

Currently I am working on topics concerning political ideas of the future, such as hope and despair, utopianism and dystopia, the very idea of the future in the context of catastrophe.

On this site you will find details of my books and academic papers as well as short commentaries/blogs on current affairs, and a brief biography/Cv along with a text on my intellectual trajectory. Recent books are featured below.

I am a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. I live in Barcelona where I continue to write and undertake various commissioned activities.