Each year a new eruption of "leaderless" social movements -- from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe, the Americas, and East Asia -- leaves journalists, political analysts, police forces, and governments disoriented and perplexed. Activists too struggle to understand and evaluate the power and effectiveness of horizontal movements. Why have the movements, which address the needs and desires of so many, not been able to achieve lasting change and create a new, more democratic and just society? Some people assume that if only social movements could find new leaders they would return to their earlier glory. Where, they ask, are the new Martin Luther Kings, Rudi Dutschkes, and Steven Bikos? Although today's leaderless and spontaneous political organizations are not sufficient, a return to traditional, centralized forms of political leadership is neither desirable nor possible. Necessary, instead, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue, is an inversion of the roles of the multitude and leadership in political organizations. Leaders should be confined to short-term, tactical action, while the multitude drives strategy. In other words, the formulation of long-term goals and objectives must come from the collective, rather than designated figureheads. Drawing on the ideas developed through their well-known Empire trilogy, Hardt and Negri have produced, in Assembly, a timely proposal for how current large-scale, horizontal movements can develop collectively the capacities for political strategy and decision-making to effect lasting and democratic change.

About the Author
Michael Hardt teaches at Duke University, where he is Director of the Social Movements Lab. Antonio Negri has taught at the University of Padua and University of Paris VIII. They are best known for the Empire trilogy: Empire (2000), Multitude (2004), and Commonwealth (2009). They are also authors most recently of Declaration (2012).

Reviews
Assembly offers a wonderful exploration of the potential for the left to challenge global capital, with possible new modes of struggle offered throughout the book ... Assembly [...] is certainly a must-read for those on the radical left. * Lewis George Bloodworth, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books *
This is an important new statement from two of the most creative thinkers on the left. * Jedediah Purdy, author of After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene *
Are you ready for democracy? Assembly argues: don't be scared to remake it. Disturbing the tendency of resistance struggles to become hamstrung by a poverty of organization, Hardt and Negri throw question after question at left political habits and traditions of thought, imagining a New Prince from the multitude and new tools for self-governance. Some of their many propositions may seem questionable and some viscerally right, but all are thoughtful, potentially revelatory, fuel. * Lauren Berlant, author of Cruel Optimism *
A critical, broad, all-encompassing analysis of contemporary society It will be read by many activists, citizens, scholars, and other (im)material workers, who care about a better future and are looking for ways to transform society in progressive ways. A brave and intelligent intervention that will influence our debates, struggles, theories, critiques, praxis, strategies and tactics in the coming years. * Professor Christian Fuchs, Director of the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies *
This is an impressive, full-fledged pars construens, theoretically sophisticated and politically plausible. Assembly is the crown jewel of an immensely influential production that every cosmopolitan critical thinker simply has to confront. One may disagree with Hardt and Negri, but the motivation for disagreement becomes more and more difficult, one masterpiece after the other. * Ugo Mattei, author of Plunder: When the Rule of Law is Illegal *



Book Information
ISBN 9780190677961
Author Michael Hardt
Format Hardback
Page Count 368
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 634g
Dimensions(mm) 242mm * 168mm * 31mm