No abstract

Love 4 by arguing that the 'classic' family has begun to give away to a multiplicity of new types of family. Normal Chaos of Love showed how single-parent families and patchwork families emerged due to successive marriages and divorces. Distant Love also focuses on a new type of family by incorporating the global picture and introducing the concept of world families. In Beck and Beck's own words, the aim of the book is to "focus on the globalization of love". The content of the book does not rely on the authors' own research or empirical findings but illustrates its points using numerous examples from other studies.The book employs diagnostic theory. In other words, it adopts the approach that a social phenomenon needs to be described first, and only after this can the reasons for it be observed. Consequently, the book is rather descriptive than explanatory. Moreover, the evolution of the culture of love follows the process of modernization. From the nation-state paradigm we move forward to the universalist model that came along with the development of European modernity from which emerged the conflict between freedom, equality and love, leaving behind the model of 'one household, one nationality, one identity'. The universality of the European model discussed in Normal Chaos of Love is, however, rethought and supplemented in this new book. The recent dominance of global capitalism and reflexive modernity have ushered in a (Western) cosmopolitan culture that is derived and interwoven from different areas of the globe and creates conflict within families.