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Pacification: Social War and the Power of Police
This provocative book offers the first sustained critique of the theory and practice of pacification
In his new book, critical theorist Mark Neocleous engages in a sustained critique of the theory and practice of pacification. Combining philosophical analysis with historical detail, Neocleous analyses the development of pacification as a key concept through which capitalist modernity has been organized, offering readers the first book that treats pacification as an important concept in the history of state power and capitalism.
Neocleous’s approach is fourfold, examining pacification as social warfare carried out through the ideology of peace; as a form of social police carried out through mechanisms of security; as law and order exercised through the permanent wars of class society; and as the myriad practices of power designed to counter insurgency.
Making use of official documents of state, the writings of counterinsurgency thinkers and the ideas perpetuated by practitioners of counterrevolution, the book unravels the complex ways through which pacification generates new forms of social war and new modes of policing that reproduce capitalist order and fabricate obedient subjects.
Through expansive accounts of war and police, and engaging with a range of topics from debt to death, from stasis to civil war, and from the police kettle to the politics of fear, the book offers a provocative analysis of the ways in which state and capital combine to build a pacified social order.
In his new book, critical theorist Mark Neocleous engages in a sustained critique of the theory and practice of pacification. Combining philosophical analysis with historical detail, Neocleous analyses the development of pacification as a key concept through which capitalist modernity has been organized, offering readers the first book that treats pacification as an important concept in the history of state power and capitalism.
Neocleous’s approach is fourfold, examining pacification as social warfare carried out through the ideology of peace; as a form of social police carried out through mechanisms of security; as law and order exercised through the permanent wars of class society; and as the myriad practices of power designed to counter insurgency.
Making use of official documents of state, the writings of counterinsurgency thinkers and the ideas perpetuated by practitioners of counterrevolution, the book unravels the complex ways through which pacification generates new forms of social war and new modes of policing that reproduce capitalist order and fabricate obedient subjects.
Through expansive accounts of war and police, and engaging with a range of topics from debt to death, from stasis to civil war, and from the police kettle to the politics of fear, the book offers a provocative analysis of the ways in which state and capital combine to build a pacified social order.
320 pages, Paperback
Published February 18, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 20, 2025
You can find my review here https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/revi...
October 17, 2025
This is an excellent book, like if Marx were to write on compulsion and control by the state. Neocleous simultaneously links thinkers from Cicero to the Vietnam war, to debt, to the enlightenment thinkers and holy books in his concept of state/imperialist/market control of people under the control of exploitation and class inequality over several thousand years. Would def recommend
June 12, 2025
This ended up giving me a lot more Greek and Roman philosophy, plus Thomas Hobbes, than I was totally prepared for. So it wasn't a breezy read. But it's full of thought-provoking ideas, I learned a lot, and I underlined a TON of stuff.
March 8, 2025
I don't love reading books on my phone anymore
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews