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The Rest and the West: Capital and Power in a Multipolar World
Far from heralding the return of the nation-state, today’s wars and struggles are fights for the future of globalization
The unipolar world has exploded. In the wake of a pandemic that has tested economies and societies, geopolitical conflict is no longer a prospect but a reality.
The Rest and the West locates the makings of this situation in turbulent dynamics of the capitalist world market. Understanding the conjuncture to spur competition for the political organization of the spaces of globalization, Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson resist the reduction of this conflict to great power rivalries or processes of economic decoupling.
Instead, they investigate how geoeconomic forces cross the rising centrality of war to capital operations and the transformations of capitalism. The arc of Mezzadra and Neilson’s analysis is wide, encompassing topics such as the pandemic crisis of mobility, shifts in the relation of social reproduction to capital circulation, state transformation in Russia and China, the politics of infrastructure and energy, and the impact of geopolitical change upon social struggles.
The book’s gambit is to forge a theory of imperialism adequate to a world in which the rest no longer provides a putative unity that makes and opposes the West.
The unipolar world has exploded. In the wake of a pandemic that has tested economies and societies, geopolitical conflict is no longer a prospect but a reality.
The Rest and the West locates the makings of this situation in turbulent dynamics of the capitalist world market. Understanding the conjuncture to spur competition for the political organization of the spaces of globalization, Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson resist the reduction of this conflict to great power rivalries or processes of economic decoupling.
Instead, they investigate how geoeconomic forces cross the rising centrality of war to capital operations and the transformations of capitalism. The arc of Mezzadra and Neilson’s analysis is wide, encompassing topics such as the pandemic crisis of mobility, shifts in the relation of social reproduction to capital circulation, state transformation in Russia and China, the politics of infrastructure and energy, and the impact of geopolitical change upon social struggles.
The book’s gambit is to forge a theory of imperialism adequate to a world in which the rest no longer provides a putative unity that makes and opposes the West.
- GenresNonfiction
304 pages, Paperback
Published November 12, 2024
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108 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 28, 2025
okay so here’s a thing. this should probably be rated higher, however not even 3 pol sci degrees somehow helped me to follow and understand everything the authors posited.
i swear with every paragraph they took me on a journey of completely new topic and then were like “we’ll elaborate on this later, moving on!” i am sure they did elaborate later, except by that time i did not remember when or if the topic was raised before. the first half of the book i found myself rereading whole sections and even chapters (i literally read just the introduction like 3 times) just to be able to follow their thread of thought. by the second half of the book i gave up and accepted the realizations of “oh, shit we are talking about something else now. cool.”
don’t get me wrong, i admire the level of research and analysis they accomplished. the sheer number of references they built their analysis on, the scope and depth … i don’t think there is anything in today’s geopolitical scene they did not reference or analyze in some shape or form. it is an incredible research project.
but on god i will have to reread it when i finally get that phd (and thus hopefully grow couple more braincells), because my brothers in christ that was SO much information.
i swear with every paragraph they took me on a journey of completely new topic and then were like “we’ll elaborate on this later, moving on!” i am sure they did elaborate later, except by that time i did not remember when or if the topic was raised before. the first half of the book i found myself rereading whole sections and even chapters (i literally read just the introduction like 3 times) just to be able to follow their thread of thought. by the second half of the book i gave up and accepted the realizations of “oh, shit we are talking about something else now. cool.”
don’t get me wrong, i admire the level of research and analysis they accomplished. the sheer number of references they built their analysis on, the scope and depth … i don’t think there is anything in today’s geopolitical scene they did not reference or analyze in some shape or form. it is an incredible research project.
but on god i will have to reread it when i finally get that phd (and thus hopefully grow couple more braincells), because my brothers in christ that was SO much information.
September 3, 2025
A lot of sauce. Good sauce I might add. But the lack of structure or perhabs the intertwinement of the chapters made it often tiresome to read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews