The Biopolitics of the War on Terror: Life Struggles, Liberal Modernity and the Defence of Logistical Societies

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title The Biopolitics of the War on Terror: Life Struggles, Liberal Modernity and the Defence of Logistical Societies
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Julian Reid
SeriesReappraising the Political
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:160
Dimensions(mm): Height 234,Width 156
ISBN/Barcode 9780719074066
ClassificationsDewey:363.3250973 320.01
Audience
Undergraduate
Professional & Vocational

Publishing Details

Publisher Manchester University Press
Imprint Manchester University Press
Publication Date 1 June 2009
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Newly available in paperback, this book overturns existing understandings of the origins and futures of the War on Terror for the purposes of International Relations theory. It demonstrates why this is not a war in defence of the integrity of human life, but a war over the political constitution of life in which the limitations of liberal accounts of humanity are a fundamental cause of the conflict. The question of the future of humanity is posed by this war, but only in the sense that its resolution depends on our abilities to move beyond the limits of dominant understandings of the human and its politics. Theorising with and beyond the works of Foucault, Deleuze, Baudrillard, Virilio and Negri, this book examines the possibilities for such a movement. What forms does human life take, it asks, when liberal understandings of humanity are no longer understood as horizons to strive for, but impositions against which the human must struggle in order to fulfil its destiny? What forms does the human assume when war against liberal regimes becomes the determining condition of its possibility? Answers to such questions are pressing, this book argues, if we earnestly desire an escape from the current impasses of international politics. -- .

Author Biography

Julian Reid is Lecturer in International Relations at King's College London -- .