Empire. By Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. 478p. $36.95 cloth, $18.95 paper.

Extract

Hailed by sympathetic reviewers as the “Communist Manifesto for our time” and condemned by scathing critics as an “impenetrable work of absolute abstraction,” Empire has exploded on an unsuspecting international academic scene. Indeed, the tremendous appeal of the book has transcended the narrow walls of the ivory tower, drawing to its authors a glaring public spotlight that only rarely shines on political and literary theorists. In the ongoing public debate over the virtues and flaws of the study, even its most intransigent detractors can hardly deny that Empire represents a powerful neo-Marxist contribution to the rapidly emerging field of “globalization studies.”