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Terms of Disorder: Keywords for an Interregnum
A timely book addressing the burning concerns of our times, from the excesses of capitalism to the global crisis of leadership.
There is widespread agreement, across a voluble political spectrum and around the planet, that we live in times of intensifying insecurity and turmoil. If ours is an age of transition, its direction is anything but certain. Momentous transformations in ecology, geopolitics, and everyday life are shadowed by a suffocating sense of stasis. The limits to capital and the limits of nature are entangled in frightful ways, while the profoundly obsolete form of leadership, domination, and conflict exacerbate an already baleful situation. And yet struggles for liberation have not been quelled. Terms of Disorder confronts this moment by probing some of the defining terms in the modern vocabulary of emancipation, with the aim of testing their capacity to name and orient collective action set on abolishing the present state of things. Ranging from communism to leadership, the eleven keywords addressed in this book provide a set of interlocking points of entry into the common task of forging a political language capable of navigating our disorientation. If, as Gramsci famously noted, the interregnum is a time when the new struggles to be born while the old order is moribund, we may wish to heed Cedric Robinson’s call to “choose wisely among the dying.”
There is widespread agreement, across a voluble political spectrum and around the planet, that we live in times of intensifying insecurity and turmoil. If ours is an age of transition, its direction is anything but certain. Momentous transformations in ecology, geopolitics, and everyday life are shadowed by a suffocating sense of stasis. The limits to capital and the limits of nature are entangled in frightful ways, while the profoundly obsolete form of leadership, domination, and conflict exacerbate an already baleful situation. And yet struggles for liberation have not been quelled. Terms of Disorder confronts this moment by probing some of the defining terms in the modern vocabulary of emancipation, with the aim of testing their capacity to name and orient collective action set on abolishing the present state of things. Ranging from communism to leadership, the eleven keywords addressed in this book provide a set of interlocking points of entry into the common task of forging a political language capable of navigating our disorientation. If, as Gramsci famously noted, the interregnum is a time when the new struggles to be born while the old order is moribund, we may wish to heed Cedric Robinson’s call to “choose wisely among the dying.”
- GenresNonfiction
242 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 28, 2024
Masterful. Granular. Important. Complex.
This is a surprising book, and a meaningful book. Alberto Toscano is a remarkable theorist and writer. I log his powerful Late Fascism. But this book on 'keywords' is not a basic hamburger helper to understanding philosophy. This is a deep and powerful exploration of terms such as freedom and resistance.
Fabulous. Stunning. Inspirational.
This is a surprising book, and a meaningful book. Alberto Toscano is a remarkable theorist and writer. I log his powerful Late Fascism. But this book on 'keywords' is not a basic hamburger helper to understanding philosophy. This is a deep and powerful exploration of terms such as freedom and resistance.
Fabulous. Stunning. Inspirational.
April 1, 2026
Read this for the third time now - twice while translating it into German and a third time for making corrections - and I‘m still amazed how much critical insight fits into such a relatively small volume.
Covering a wide range of topics and spanning more than 15 years, the essays collected in this book vary both in length and genre, but are all worth reading for anyone interested in critical social theory. They include incisive analyses and polemics regarding contemporary political questions („Reform“, „The Left“, „Dual Power“) and in-depth discussions of various thinkers on different concepts: Marx (the large chapter on the concept of communism is a must-read), Cedric Robinson and CLR James („Leadership“) Althusser, Balibar and Foucault („The People“, „Transition“), Bloch and Lukács („Radicalism“) Arendt, Davis and many more („Freedom“).
I‘ve learned an immense amount from reading and re-reading this book and I am very excited about the publication of its German translation in October - including a new preface discussing the notion of „Interregnum“!
Check it out here: https://unrast-verlag.de/produkt/inte...
Covering a wide range of topics and spanning more than 15 years, the essays collected in this book vary both in length and genre, but are all worth reading for anyone interested in critical social theory. They include incisive analyses and polemics regarding contemporary political questions („Reform“, „The Left“, „Dual Power“) and in-depth discussions of various thinkers on different concepts: Marx (the large chapter on the concept of communism is a must-read), Cedric Robinson and CLR James („Leadership“) Althusser, Balibar and Foucault („The People“, „Transition“), Bloch and Lukács („Radicalism“) Arendt, Davis and many more („Freedom“).
I‘ve learned an immense amount from reading and re-reading this book and I am very excited about the publication of its German translation in October - including a new preface discussing the notion of „Interregnum“!
Check it out here: https://unrast-verlag.de/produkt/inte...
June 12, 2024
two really helpful essays (on communism and on transition). sadly, much of the rest felt like blog post material--none more so than the confusing choice to include the 2011 promethianism essay.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews