Alain Badiou: The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings (2011–)

“Testing the winds of history blowing from the Arab revolts.

In the uprisings of the Arab world, Alain Badiou discerns echoes of the European revolutions of 1848. In both cases, the object was to overthrow despotic regimes maintained by the great powers—regimes designed to impose the will of financial oligarchies. Both events occurred after what was commonly thought to be the end of a revolutionary epoch: in 1815, the final defeat of Napoleon; and in 1989, the fall of the Soviet Union. But the revolutions of 1848 proclaimed for a century and a half the return of revolutionary thought and action. Likewise, the uprisings underway today herald a worldwide resurgence in the liberating force of the masses—despite the attempts of the ‘international community’ to neutralize its power.

Badiou’s book salutes this reawakening of history, weaving examples from the Arab Spring and elsewhere into a global analysis of the return of emancipatory universalism.”

Originally published as Le Reveil de l’histoire, Nouvelles Editions Lignes, 2011

Translated by Gregory Elliott
Publisher Verso Books, 2012
ISBN 1844678792, 9781844678792
126 pages

Reviews: Jasper Bernes and Joshua Clover (Los Angeles Review of Books), Daniel Tutt (Platypus), Anindya Bhattacharyya (Socialist Review).

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2020-7-5)