Debating Empire

by Balakrishnan, Gopal; Aronowitz, Stanley; Arrighi, Giovanni; Brennan, Timothy; Bull, Malcolm

• ISBN13: 9781859844526
• ISBN10: 1859844529
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-12-17
• Publisher: Verso

Summary

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's book Empire has been hailed as a latter day Communist Manifesto . Its ability to develop a theoretical framework relevant to the current period of global neo-liberalism and international capitalism captured the imagination of the growing anti-capitalist movement and has been claimed as a turning point for the left.As much as it has seduced and delighted some, however, it has enraged and frustrated others. In this collection, a series of some of the most acute international theorists and commentators of our times subject the book to trenchant and probing analysis from political, economic and philosophical perspectives, and Hardt and Negri respond to their questions and criticisms.

Author Biography

Gopal Balakrishnan is the author of The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt, and editor of Debating “Empire” and (with Benedict Anderson) Mapping the Nation. A member of the New Left Review editorial board, he teaches Contemporary Theory at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Giovanni Arrighi (1937–2009) was Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. His books include The Long Twentieth Century, Adam Smith in Beijing, and, with Beverly Silver, Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System. His work has appeared in many publications, including New Left Review—who published an interview on his life-long intellectual trajectory in March–April 2009, and an obituary in Nov–Dec 2009—and there are more accounts on his memorial website.

Timothy Brennan is professor of comparative literature, cultural studies, and English at the University of Minnesota. His books include At Home in the World: Cosmopolitanism Now and, most recently, Wars of Position: The Cultural Politics of the Left and Right. He writes for a number of journals, including New Left Review and The Nation.

Malcolm Bull is a theorist and art historian who teaches at Oxford. His books include Seeing Things Hidden, The Mirror of the Gods, and Anti-Nietzsche. He is on the editorial board of New Left Review and writes for the London Review of Books.

Sam Gindin is the former Research Director of the Canadian Autoworkers Union and Packer Visiting Chair in Social Justice at York University. Among his many publications, he is the author (with Greg Albo and Leo Panitch) of In and Out of Crisis: The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives.

Leo Panitch is Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University. Editor of The Socialist Register for 25 years, his many books include Working Class Politics in Crisis, A Different Kind of State, The End of Parliamentary Socialism, and American Empire and The Political Economy of Global Finance.

Ellen Meiksins Wood, for many years Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto, is the author of many books, including Democracy Against Capitalism and, with Verso, The Pristine Culture of Capitalism, The Origin of Capitalism, Peasant-Citizen and Slave, Citizens to Lords, Empire of Capital and Liberty and Property.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Gopal Balakrishnan	vii
1 Empire: A Postmodern Theory of Revolution	1	(18)
Michael Rustin
2 The New World Order	19	(7)
Stanley Aronowitz
3 A Nebulous Empire	26	(3)
Charles Tilly
4 Lineages of Empire	29	(14)
Giovanni Arrighi
5 Back to the Future?	43	(9)
Sanjay Seth
6 Gems and Baubles in Empire	52	(9)
Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin
7 A Manifesto for Global Capitalism?	61	(22)
Ellen Meiksins Wood
8 You Can't Build a New Society with a Stanley Knife	83	(14)
Malcolm Bull
9 The Italian Ideology	97	(24)
Timothy Brennan
10 Toni Negri in Perspective	121	(23)
Alex Callinicos
11 Grass-Roots Globalism	144	(11)
Tom Mertes
Notes on Contributors	155	(2)
Acknowledgements	157	(2)
Index	159