"Who was Zygmunt Bauman? The late sociologist, known throughout the world for his path-breaking work on liquid modernity, had a biography. He was a Polish Jew, a soldier, a refugee. He had a whole life before Leeds. Izabela Wagner's great achievement is to recover this other Bauman. This book will change the way we see Bauman, forever."
Peter Beilharz, La Trobe University "This is a brilliant biography of an extraordinary intellectual. Izabela Wagner, a distinguished sociologist and intellectual historian, has found her subject. Zygmunt Bauman’s life embodies a paradigmatic 20th century East-European trajectory. Framed by Hitler’s and Stalin’s totalitarianisms, it is a story of an attempted assimilation by a bourgeois Jewish family, engagement with Communism by the children's generation, disillusionment and exile. In Bauman’s case, of course, this has been accompanied by a lifetime of influential reflection on the conditions and characteristics of modern society. A fascinating read."
Jan T. Gross, Princeton University "Izabela Wagner’s biography of Bauman is impressively erudite, exquisitely researched, and brings its subject vividly to life… an indispensable book."
Australian Book Review
"The lives of sociologists, for the most part, tend not to be wildly eventful. But this was not the case with Bauman. […] Izabela Wagner's biography of Bauman is impressively erudite, exquisitely researched, and brings its subject vividly to life. […I]n it, you will find a painstakingly comprehensive account of Bauman's intellectual formation and his daring originality, a kind of voyage around the nature of his sociological enterprise, and a celebration of a truly global public intellectual."
Anthony Elliott, Australian Book Review
"excellent… It is rare that one says of an academic book that it is a page-turner, but this book is such a case. Partly, this is due to Bauman’s life, which, despite his protestations, was incredibly interesting, but it is also due to Wagner. She brings these events to life not just through her prose, but her skilful deployment of archival resources to enrich this story."
European Journal of Social Theory
"Wagner succeeds in vividly unfolding the multi-layered and conflict-ridden constellations that characterised Bauman's biography. Her book offers a sociological perspective on the history of a man and his family that provides deep insight into the life of a Polish Jew growing up in the 1920s and 1930s, into his political socialization in Poland and in the Soviet Union, and above all into the dynamic intellectual scene in Warsaw during the thaw. Anyone who has an interest in the social and historical characteristics of these periods will be richly rewarded by this biography."
H-Soz-Kult"impressive"
Antisemitism Studies
"Deep, interesting and enjoyable to read. The author masterfully weaves documents, stories, interviews and photographs to piece together with many voices the life of a man far beyond the ordinary."
Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia
