Table of Contents

* Preface: The Becoming-Prince of the Multitude Part 1. Republic (and the Multitude of the Poor) *1.1 Republic of Property *1.2 Productive Bodies *1.3 The Multitude of the Poor * De Corpore 1: Biopolitics as Event Part 2. Modernity (and the Landscapes of Altermodernity) *2.1 Antimodernity as Resistance *2.2 Ambivalences of Modernity *2.3 Altermodernity * De Homine 1: Biopolitical Reason Part 3. Capital (and the Struggles over Common Wealth) *3.1 Metamorphoses of the Composition of Capital *3.2 Class Struggle from Crisis to Exodus *3.3 Kairos of the Multitude * De Singularitate 1: Of Love Possessed * Intermezzo: A Force to Combat Evil Part 4. Empire Returns *4.1 Brief History of a Failed Coup d'Etat *4.2 After U.S. Hegemony *4.3 Genealogy of Rebellion * De Corpore 2: Metropolis Part 5. Beyond Capital? *5.1 Terms of the Economic Transition *5.2 What Remains of Capitalism *5.3 Pre-shocks along the Fault Lines * De Homine 2: Cross the Threshold! Part 6. Revolution *6.1 Revolutionary Parallelism *6.2 Insurrectional Intersections *6.3 Governing the Revolution * De Singularitate 2: Instituting Happiness * Notes * Acknowledgments * Index

Promotional Information

Everyone seems to agree that our economic system is broken, yet the debate about alternatives remains oppressively narrow. Hardt and Negri explode this claustrophobic debate, taking readers to the deepest roots of our current crises and proposing radical, and deeply human, solutions. There has never been a better time for this book. -- Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine Commonwealth, last and richest of the Empire trilogy, is a powerful and ambitious reappropriation of the whole tradition of political theory for the Left. Clarifying Foucault's ambiguous notion of biopower, deepening the authors' own proposal for the notion of multitude, it offers an exhilarating summa of the forms and possibilities of resistance today. It is a politically as well as an intellectually invigorating achievement. -- Fredric Jameson, Duke University

About the Author

Michael Hardt is Professor of Literature and Italian at Duke University. Antonio Negri was an independent researcher and writer. He was formerly a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Paris and a Professor of Political Science at the University of Padua.

Reviews

Everyone seems to agree that our economic system is broken, yet the debate about alternatives remains oppressively narrow. Hardt and Negri explode this claustrophobic debate, taking readers to the deepest roots of our current crises and proposing radical, and deeply human, solutions. There has never been a better time for this book.
*Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine*

Commonwealth, last and richest of the Empire trilogy, is a powerful and ambitious reappropriation of the whole tradition of political theory for the Left. Clarifying Foucault's ambiguous notion of biopower, deepening the authors' own proposal for the notion of multitude, it offers an exhilarating summa of the forms and possibilities of resistance today. It is a politically as well as an intellectually invigorating achievement.
*Fredric Jameson, Duke University*

Commonwealth [is] the latest book by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, whose Empire and Multitude have, arguably, been the dominant works of political philosophy of the new century...[It's] the much-anticipated final volume of the Empire trilogy.
*Artforum*

Commonwealth is a timely contribution to our understanding of contemporary capitalist relations and the potential revolutionary conditions they create...Together Hardt and Negri's work is considered to be responsible for a resurgence of interest in non-orthodox Marxism and its political manifestations. Commonwealth is the final part of a trilogy that began with Empire in 2000, a book that was published during the emergence of the alter-globalization movement. Multitude followed in 2004, developing the ideas that had been introduced in Empire, in particular the concept of the multitude as a new revolutionary subject. Commonwealth is a worthy addition to the trilogy, expamnding and clarifying on the understandings in the previous books, but perhaps more significantly grounding their analysis within an extended discussion of "the common."...Commonwealth is a book that challenges presuppositions about the utility of Marx, and introduces the possibility of combining his insights with the ideas of other significant authors such as Nietzsche, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, who are not traditionally associated with the radical communist project.
*Red Pepper*