Antagonistics: Capitalism and Power in an Age of War - Softcover

Balakrishnan, Gopal

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1844672697 ISBN 13: 9781844672691

Publisher: Verso Books, 2009

Synopsis

'Antagonistics' addresses core political and theoretical questions: How should we conceive the relations between neo-imperial warfare and neoliberalism, American hegemony and capitalist globalization? Reflections on the central issues of the post-9/11 order are set within a larger framework, tracing the intertwined evolution of the modern state system and the capitalist mode of production, from the Treaty of Westphalia to the Occupation of Iraq. Balakrishnan interrogates three key political perspectives - liberalism (Tocqueville), the radical right (Schmitt), and the Marxist left (Althusser) - for their insights on state power and civil society, democracy, and class. 'Antagonistics' combines intellectual history, political philosophy, and historical sociology to produce a highly distinctive portrait of an age of capital and war.

About this title

Product Description:

Unusual book

Review:

An intellectual feast and a dazzling commentary on political thinking, contemporary and classical. Here an intelligence honed on Schmitt and Machiavelli reviews a range of theoretical texts with courteous sarcasm and radical interrogation; the results are witty, devastating and full of suggestive speculation, culminating in the horizon of an astonishing new vision of Machivelli, well beyond the stereotypical discourse of conventional political science or journalistic commentary --Fredric Jameson

Hegel wrote that the moment of triumph of a social movement is simultaneously the moment of its disintegration: when the externnal enemy disappears, inherent antagonisms explode. Gopal Balakrishnan shows how this holds for the worldwide triumph of liberal democracy in the 1990s - Fukuyama's dream of the 'end of history' has morphed into economic crisis and foreign policy failure. 'Antagonistics' is a book for all those who want to orient themselves in the chaos of our historical moment - which means it is a book for everyone. --Slavoj Zizek

Hegel wrote that the moment of triumph of a social movement is simultaneously the moment of its disintegration: when the externnal enemy disappears, inherent antagonisms explode. Gopal Balakrishnan shows how this holds for the worldwide triumph of liberal democracy in the 1990s - Fukuyama's dream of the 'end of history' has morphed into economic crisis and foreign policy failure. 'Antagonistics' is a book for all those who want to orient themselves in the chaos of our historical moment - which means it is a book for everyone. --Slavoj Zizek

About this edition

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1844672697
• ISBN 13: 9781844672691
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304