Zygmunt Bauman is among the best known and most influential thinkers in the world. It is to him that we owe the dazzling definition of ‘liquid modernity’, of which he is one of the most acute observers. Professor emeritus of Sociology in the Universities of Leeds and Warsaw, Laterza has published almost all of his writing, including: Inside Globalization, Community. Seeking safety in an insecure world, Liquid Modernity, Interview on Identity (edited by Benedetto Vecchi), Society under Siege, Liquid Love, Wasted Lives. Modernity and its Outcasts, Liquid Life, Modus Vivendi. Hell and Utopia of the Liquid World, Liquid Fear, I Consume, Therefore I Am, The Art of Living, Parasitic Capitalism, Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers?, Living on Borrowed Time: Conversations with Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo, ‘The Wealth of the few Benefits Most’. False!, Collateral Damage, The Sixth Power. Surveillance in liquid modernity (with D. Lyon), The Demon of Fear, Conversations on God and on Man (with S. Obirek).

Since 1996 Ezio Mauro has been editor-in-chief of la Repubblica. With Laterza he published The Happiness of Democracy. A dialogue (with Gustavo Zagrebelsky).