This document explores the sudden increase in interest in lifelong learning among policymakers in Great Britain and elsewhere; existing patterns of participation in lifelong learning; the measures being developed to promote lifelong learning; and the prospects of achieving a viable learning society. The following are among the topics discussed in the book's five chapters: (1) lifelong learning as a design for the future (global policy consensus on lifelong learning; the changing course of life and new learning challenges; education and the learning society); (2) the silent explosion in lifelong learning (the impact of a learning society; permanently learning subjects; fashion and the individual; reflexive modernization); (3) the learning economy (occupational change and the changing skills mix; the learning company; mobility, flexibility, and the learning imperative; the concept of employable workers as economic nomads; self-direction and employment; learning to work and learning from work); (4) groups that are being left behind (social exclusion and the redundancy of the poor; rising expectations; the politics of poverty and discourse of exclusion; legitimate inequalities; the "knowledge poor"; human capital and social capital); and (5) the new educational order (schooling in a learning society; widening participation; investing in social capital; pursuing the search for meaning). (Contains 343 references.) (MN)