Product Description

Imperialism as we knew it may be no more, but Empire is alive and well. It is, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri demonstrate in this bold work, the new political order of globalization. It is easy to recognize the contemporary economic, cultural, and legal transformations taking place across the globe but difficult to understand them. Hardt and Negri contend that they should be seen in line with our historical understanding of Empire as a universal order that accepts no boundaries or limits. Their book shows how this emerging Empire is fundamentally different from the imperialism of European dominance and capitalist expansion in previous eras. Rather, today's Empire draws on elements of U.S. constitutionalism, with its tradition of hybrid identities and expanding frontiers. Empire identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in postmodern society--to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communication and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of postindustrial forms of labor and production help to define the new imperial global order. More than analysis, Empire is also an unabashedly utopian work of political philosophy, a new Communist Manifesto. Looking beyond the regimes of exploitation and control that characterize today's world order, it seeks an alternative political paradigm--the basis for a truly democratic global society.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #93421 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-15
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 478 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt's Empire has already caused quite a storm. After "anti-capitalist" demonstrations and books such as Naomi Klein's No Logo and George Monbiot's Captive State, a vacuum seemed to exist for an extensive, coherent philosophical take on where our world is going. Empire seeks to fill that gap by asking where globalisation comes from, what it means and whether or not it is a good or bad thing.

Negri, a Marxist imprisoned for his beliefs and his involvement with the Italian hard-left, and Michael Hardt, an English literature professor who had previously acted as Negri's translator (and the translator of an important, though philosophically more arcane, precursor to Empire, Giorgio Agamben's The Coming Community) have produced a key post-Marxist text (which builds on many of the arguments in Nick Dyer-Witheford's excellent Cyber-Marx) that views its world through lenses bequeathed to it by the best of the French post-structuralists. Negri and Hardt's accomplishment has been to apply the sometimes difficult work of theorists such as Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (especially A Thousand Plateaus) and Jacques Derrida to describe a world that has undergone a paradigm switch to a new Empire (in a way not dissimilarly than Thomas Keenan does particularly in his chapter on Marx's rhetoric in the much undervalued Fables of Responsibility). According to Negri and Hardt, this new Empire is the result of the transformation of modern capitalism into a set of power relationships we endlessly replicate that transcend the nation state (so anti-imperialism is out as a progressive politics). Vitally, the authors argue that the multitude, through their many struggles, pushed the world to this point and it is the multitude who can push through to a much better world on the other side of globalisation.

This is an optimistic, wide-ranging, defiant challenge of a book and Negri and Hardt should be commended on their erudition as much as their vision. While questions undoubtedly remain after reading the text, these should not stop the interested reader in coming to, and learning from, this profound piece of work. --Mark Thwaite

The Observer, 15 July 2001
How often can it happen that a book is swept off the shelves until you can't find a copy in New York for love or money?... Empire is a sweeping history of humanist philosophy, Marxism and modernity that propels itself to a grand political conclusion: that we are a creative and enlightened species and that our history is that of humanity9s progress towards the seizure of power from those who exploit it."

The Sunday Times, 15 July 2001
[Empire] presents a philosophical vision that some have greeted as the next big thing in the field of humanities, with its authors the natural successors of names such as Claude Levi-Strauss, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault... It has been described by Frederic Jameson, a leading left-wing literary critic in America, as the first great new theoretical synthesis of the new millennium.

Customer Reviews

A work of genius
If you want to understand the contemporary world and the forces affecting the paths of history then start here. Negri's intellect is rigorous and first-rate, his depth of insight outstanding. Normally he writes in a very intellectual style, using technical language and thought that is beyond that of the begginner. Here the writing is more disciplined and coherent, but doesn't lose any of its wealth. His use of historical materialism allows him to endows his work with a strong emprical basis which ensures that is statements are factual and to the point and he doesn't make wooly or doubtful assertions. His analysis of capital and its affects on human life is invigorating in its analysis of past events, prescient in its predictions for our present and future times.

Fierce in its attack, sweeping in its scope
Negri and Hardt will be remembered for this work. Books of this intelligence are difficult to find. This book should hearten democratic and progressive students of Socialism and Marxism. Although the prose and referencing lends itself to the academic reader, this does not blunten the strength of its attack on the undemocratic nature of modern capitalism. Readers that don't have a background in political thought might best wean themselves onto this book by digesting a few other books on the history of political thought. Also reading Naomi Klein's No Logo prior will help clarify the reader on the current state of neo-liberal capitalism. As I said above it is not an easy read, but in the end very rewarding. There is hope for a more democratic, equitable future and it lies with thinkers and doers such as Sn Negri and Mr Hardt.

A parson's egg of a book.
"Empire" failed to live up to its promise. The prose style was irritating. Brilliantly lucid now, then glib post-modern; did Hardt and Negri take it in turns to write?

The substantive issues also recieved uneven attention. The attempt to rehabilitate Marxism really didn't work, and despite some excellent points, the central thesis is flawed, and other avenues remain unexplored. Cooper's take (The Postmodern State) is more coherent and promising.