Giddens worked for many years at the University of Cambridge and was eventually promoted to a full professorship in 1987. In 1997 he became director of the London School of Economics and Political Science until 2003 and a member of the Advisory Council of the Institute for Public Policy Research. He is an advisor to British Prime Minister Tony Blair; it was Giddens whose "third way" political approach has been Tony Blair's guiding political idea. He was given a life peerage in June 2004, as Baron Giddens, of Southgate in the London Borough of Enfield and sits in the House of Lords for Labour.
Giddens' ambition is both to recast social theory and to re-examine our understanding of the development and trajectory of modernity. He gave the 1999 BBC Reith Lectures, on the topic of "The Runaway World", reflections on globalisation, available here