Bruno Bosteels is one of that group of Badiou translators (Peter Hallward, Oliver Feltham, Alberto Toscano, Jason Barker are some others) who have also written interpretively and critically on him. Bosteels’ latest writing in this vein is Badiou and Politics, a much anticipated book, literally just out, which readers can expect to see talked about [...]
Posts under ‘Book Review’
Offshore
A topic we’ve been pursuing on this site is the transnationalization of capital, one of the prerequisites of which is the unrestricted flow of money (money-capital) around the globe. Historically part of what has facilitated this flow has been (and continues to be) the existence of unregulated places — “offshore.” Runciman in his review links [...]
The limits of critique
One aspect of the contemporary scene that has often seemed perhaps harder to deal with than any other has been the pervasive atmosphere of irony. It’s not quite cynicism, nor “the worst are full of passionate intensity while the best lack all conviction,” but rather a stepped-back “meta” attitude, where’s it’s never the thing itself [...]
Assessing Mao and the Chinese Revolution
Mao Zedong has suffered, perhaps more than any other great revolutionist of the 20th century, from a long history (or campaign) of opprobrium linked with a lack of understanding (or refusal to really investigate), which has spanned most of the left as well as much of the academic world. For the latter it’s been the [...]
Marx’ theory and the crisis this time
As this review of his two most recent books observes, David Harvey has been engaged in constructing a synthesis of Marx’ views on the causes of capitalist crises for several decades, and has, in The Enigma of Capital, written the first “book-length example of Marxian crisis theory addressed to the current situation.” This appeared in [...]
John Steele: Marxism, Politics, and Evil
Is Marxism, or revolutionary politics generally, sufficient for human emancipation? In Ethical Marxism, Bill Martin argues that Marxism requires ethics as the necessary foundation of any politics which may actually be capable of leading to this goal. The following essay critically examines this book and this thesis. Khukuri features several essays by Bill Martin, and [...]
Badiou — and George Bernard Shaw — on Richard Wagner
Another book by Badiou just out in Engish, this one on a surprising topic. Richard Wagner is not someone about whom I have much knowledge, either artistically or politically, aside from the usual background that he’s often been classed as a racist and reactionary. This is a verdict against which Badiou argues in Five Lessons [...]
An important work
Following is a review, appearing recently in the Marx & Philosophy Review of Books, of Badiou’s Theory of the Subject, a work published in French in 1982 (although consisting of a series of seminars given four years earlier), and not in English until last year. This book is not only one of the “stages on [...]
‘The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics’
Mathematics, as we all know, is not only widely used in the sciences, but is often said to be “the language of science.” It has also been claimed, by Alain Badiou, to constitute ontology, that is, to be the science which describes and theorizes the most basic structure or structures of being or reality. For [...]
Badiou’s new book
A nice little review, originally appearing in the Irish Left Review, of Badiou’s new book. A paragraph at the end (about two other books) has been cut. Reading Badiou Seán Sheehan Alain Badiou could be the most important philosopher alive today – time will tell – and his work is gradually reaching English-speaking readers. His magnum [...]
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