Michael Lowy

Daniel Bensaid

Penelope Duggan

The Paris Commune of 1871 was one of the first working class attempts at the social emancipation of the oppressed and exploited. Between 18 March and 29 May 1871, the popular classes succeeded for a while in breaking their chains. It was a short period when people could take control of their lives. The Paris Commune is an inspiration today. The memory of the past and its struggles strengthens the fight for the utopia of the future. This book, The Paris Commune - An ode to emancipation, is a collection of writings by Daniel Bensaïd, Olivier Besancenot, Sandra Bloodworth, Judy Cox, Penelope Duggan, Mathilde Larrère, Michael Löwy, Kay Mann, Eric Toussaint.

The Paris Commune

Wendy Brown

Alain Badiou

Jean-Luc Nancy

Giorgio Agamben

"Is it meaningful to call oneself a democrat? And if so, how do you interpret the word?" In responding to this question, eight iconoclastic thinkers prove the rich potential of democracy, along with its critical weaknesses, and reconceive the practice to accommodate new political and cultural realities. Giorgio Agamben traces the tense history of constitutions and their coexistence with various governments. Alain Badiou contrasts current democratic practice with democratic communism. Daniel Bensaid ponders the institutionalization of democracy, while Wendy Brown discusses the democratization of society under neoliberalism. Jean-Luc Nancy measures the difference between democracy as a form of rule and as a human end, and Jacques Rancière highlights its egalitarian nature. Kristin Ross identifies hierarchical relationships within democratic practice, and Slavoj Zizek complicates the distinction between those who desire to own the state and those who wish to do without it. Concentrating on the classical roots of democracy and its changing meaning over time and within different contexts, these essays uniquely defend what is left of the left-wing tradition after the fall of Soviet communism. They confront disincentives to active democratic participation that have caused voter turnout to decline in western countries, and they address electoral indifference by invoking and reviving the tradition of citizen involvement. Passionately written and theoretically rich, this collection speaks to all facets of modern political and democratic debate.

Democracy in What State?

Tariq Ali

From his family bistro in a staunchly red neighborhood of Toulouse to the founding of the Jeunesses communist revolutionaries in the 1960s to the re-reading of Marx, a founder member of the Ligue Communiste relates a life of ideological and practical struggle as he tried to understand capitalism.

A Memoir

An Impatient Life

“France’s leading Marxist public intellectual.” Tariq Ali In the classic tradition of the philosopher-activist, Daniel Bensaïd tells the story of a life deeply entwined with the history of both the French and the international Left. From his family bistro in a staunchly red neighborhood of Toulouse to the founding of the Jeunesses communistes revolutionnaires in the 1960s, from the joyous explosion of May 1968 to the painful experience of defeat in Latin America, from the re-reading of Marx to the “Marrano” trail, Bensaïd relates a life of ideological and practical struggle in which he unflinchingly sought to understand capitalism without ever succumbing to its temptations.

Daniel Bensaid

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