Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, eds., A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019). 211pp., £20.00 hb., 978 0 69118 883 6. One thing a lot of people are saying right now – especially after the events of January 6th 2021 – is ..read more

Nathan Brown, Rationalist Empiricism: A Theory of Speculative Critique (Fordham, NY: Fordham University Press, 2021). 272pp., £39.00 pb., 978 0 82329 001 7 Describing the general course of twentieth-century French philosophy, Alain Badiou distinguishes between two major, divergent orientations of thought: a rationalist orientation that promotes a ‘philosophy of the concept’, following from the works ..read more

Ntina Tzouvala, Capitalism as Civilisation: A History of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). 276pp., £85.00 hb., £22.99 pb., 978 1 10849 718 3 hb., 978 1 10873 955 9 pb. At the heart of the post-World War II international order was a legitimating narrative premised on the idea that the world system was ..read more

Timothy Bewes, Free Indirect: The Novel in a Postfictional Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022). 336pp., £28.00 pb., 978 0 23119 2972 A bold question motivates Timothy Bewes’ Free Indirect: Is a non-subjective thought possible? Bewes looks for an answer in recent developments in the novel. His contention is that the novel is a ..read more

Moritz Altenried, The Digital Factory: The Human Labor of Automation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022). 217pp., £76.00 hb., £22.00 pb., 978 0 22681 549 7 hb., 978 0 22681 548 0 pb. Since the beginning of spring 2022, many countries have witnessed the return to supposedly ‘normal’ rhythms of life after the closures and ..read more

Shortly after Jean-Luc Godard’s death at the end of 2022, the Parisian Ménagerie de verre, a private art space primarily dedicated to dance, showed excerpts from the late work of the grand master, in a ‘visual and sonorous journey around five films made by Godard between 1999 and 2018’. Planned by his producer Jean-Paul Battaggia ..read more

Jill Godmilow, Kill The Documentary: A Letter to Filmmakers, Students, and Scholars (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022). 224pp., £94.00 hb., £25.00 pb., 978 0 23120 276 3 hb., 978 0 23120 277 0 pb. Jill Godmilow’s Kill the Documentary: A Letter to Filmmakers, Students, and Scholars is a curious object. Although published by Columbia ..read more

Louis Menand, The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, 2021). 857pp., £30.00 hb., 978 0 37415 845 3 During the past decade there has been an intensified debate in mainstream art criticism about the tension between art’s freedom and free speech. In this debate art’s freedom ..read more

Boris Groys, Philosophy of Care (London and New York: Verso, 2022). 106pp., £9.99 hb., 978 1 83976 492 9 Boris Groys’ Philosophy of Care is comprised of twelve short, pithy sections that plot an abbreviated history of mainly Western philosophy from ancient to modern times. Also included are two diversions into Russian intellectual thought, Groys ..read more

Interview Health without security? An interview with Mark Neocleous Mark Neocleous with Sam Kelly Health without security? An interview with Mark Neocleous health, security, biopolitics, COVID-19, immunology, medicine, liberalism, police 75 87 Mark Neocleous is Professor of the Critique of Political Economy at Brunel University London. He is the author of numerous books including War ..read more