Empire and Beyond

Today, Empire no longer has an outside: it no longer toleratesrealities external to itself. Hence every war cannot but be a civilwar, an internal battle, a domestic strife. But if the enemy isalways within, militarization is part and parcel of normalizationand every war necessarily appears as a policing operation. And yethas the sun really set on the old materialist dream of transformingsocial conflict into the beginnings of liberation? In the cracks ofEmpire one can discern an emergent capacity to remould the world.The anti-Empire is represented by the multitude, the collection ofimpassioned and desiring individuals whose potential for actionoffers the best hope for a better world.In this book Antonio Negri explains the key concepts and methodswhich he and Michael Hardt have used to analyse Empire and the newforms of power and counter-power that are shaping and reshaping ourworld today. Through five introductory lectures and severalsupporting texts Negri constructs a democratic discourse onglobalization, renews the premises of a materialist analysis ofsocial and political life and offers some glimpses of thefuture.