Suchergebnisse

Arms and accumulation -- Virgilian visions -- Algorithms of war -- Battleground of the spectacle -- The role of force in history -- The national imagination -- The oracle of post-democracy -- Two on the marble cliffs -- Overcoming emancipation -- The age of identity -- The politics of piety -- From Florence to Moscow -- Machiavelli and the reawakening of history

THE OPPOSITION of an early and a late Marx may seem to be a topic of little contemporary moment. Notably, the current round of interest in Marx, in contrast to previous ones, is focused on his later economics to the exclusion of the earlier work. The association of his early writings with philosophy always attenuated its appeal for the more empirically oriented, while these days its reputation for humanism, teleology, and Eurocentrism can diminish it for the more theoretical. In any event, contentions over the intellectual continuity of purpose across various differently demarcated phases of his work took place in a political context in which this was still a matter of some doctrinal significance. The perceived stakes of the philosophical, alternatively methodological, periodization of Marx's career largely faded away with the end of Western Marxism as a distinct, heterodox historical formation of the workers' movement. Adapted from the source document.

Argues that it is unlikely that capitalist renewal involving new phases of accumulation will emerge from what appears to be a protracted economic shake-out. It is far more likely that the coming era will resemble what classical political economists called a "stationary state" of civilization. It is contended that the capacity for sustainable growth is being hindered by the coming together of "a crisis conjunctural of accumulation with ongoing epochal shifts in world capitalism." Such dimensions of this dual crisis as its technological bases, demographic patterns, & the international division of labor are explored, along with possible forms of politics that could develop in the aftermath of neo-liberalism. A return to an earlier Keynesianism & the hope of a transition to green capitalism are both seen as unlikely & there are currently no large-sale movements demanding radical reforms. It is concluded that the world is experiencing a "period of inconclusive struggles between a weakened capitalism & dispersed agencies of opposition" that signal the beginning of a new kind of "worldlessness & drift.". Adapted from the source document.

Examines Anzar Gat's book, War in Human Civilization (2007), which surveys the entire history of organized violence & addresses such issues as what war is & what role it has played in different forms of society. While his three earlier books (1989, 1992, & 1998) covered the origins of military thought from the Enlightenment to the age of fully mechanized war, this volume explores current geo-political problems to consider whether & how war can be eliminated. Special attention is given to his argument that "evolutionary theory can provide an adequate account of how qualitative changes from one form of society to another have taken place." However, Gat's neo-evolutionism fails to explain the emergence of new logics of domestication or the earlier long pacification of hostilities. Other matters discussed include Gat's theory of the origins of the state; his view of East-West opposition; causes for the ascendancy of Europe; distinctions between the commercial worlds of Europe & Asia; the fate of military conflict in the age of world capitalism; & the probability of future wars. J. Lindroth

The theoretical structure of the most ambitious projection of the American empire to date, & its political attachment to the Clinton Presidency, history & strategy, rhetoric & realities, are presented in Philip Bobbitt's Shield of Achilles. Adapted from the source document.