Most people spend an increasing amount of time in soulless, impersonal places: motorways, airports, in front of cash machines, TVs and computers. For the author, this is symptomatic of the experience of "supermodernity" or late-capitalist existence. The invasion of modern life by these "non-places" is central to this work. The book explores the distinction between "place," encrusted with historical meaning and creative of social life, and "non-place," to which individuals are connected in a uniform, bureaucratic manner and where no organic social life is possible.