Politics Out of History. By Wendy Brown. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. 193p. $45.00 cloth, $14.95 paper.

Extract

Wendy Brown argues that the metanarratives of modernity stories of the historical march of reason, the rule of truth, the fruits of expanding freedom, the benevolence of growing equality, and the prospect of endless peace and progress have been undermined by the experiences of our times. These narratives once provided banisters for political thought and staircases for political life. They are now left in tatters, and there are no viable replacements. Politics Out of History explores the deformities of politics in these times. Despite the heralded triumph of liberal capitalism, the world does not appear to be blessed with an overabundance of stable, just, pluralistic societies in which poverty, environmental degradation, and social cleavages are but faint memories. Confronted with enduring problems and denied consoling ideals, denizens of the postmodernity are left to their own devices. They must negotiate a world where power is without logic, political life is deprived of teleology, nature has become contested terrain, and conviction often appears as a retreat to the indefensible.