The Communist Horizon
In this new title in Verso’s Pocket Communism series, Jodi Dean unshackles the communist ideal from the failures of the Soviet Union. In an age when the malfeasance of international banking has alerted exploited populations the world over to the unsustainability of an economic system predicated on perpetual growth, it is time the left ended its melancholic accommodation with capitalism.
In the new capitalism of networked information technologies, our very ability to communicate is exploited, but revolution is still possible if we organize on the basis of our common and collective desires. Examining the experience of the Occupy movement, Dean argues that such spontaneity can’t develop into a revolution and it needs to constitute itself as a party.
An innovative work of pressing relevance, The Communist Horizon offers nothing less than a manifesto for a new collective politics.
Hardback, 256 pages
ISBN: 9781844679546
October 2012
$19.95 / £12.99 / $21.00CAN
Other Editions
Ebook
ISBN: 9781844679553
October 2012
$9.99
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Part of the Pocket Communism series
Reviews
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“This is what everyone engaged in today’s struggles for emancipation needs: a unique combination of theoretical stringency and a realistic assessment of our predicament. To anyone who continues to dwell in illusions about liberal democracy, one should simply say: read Jodi Dean’s new book!”
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“Jodi’s sharp analysis of the impasses of the left is also a kind of requiem for much of the 2.0 bluster of the last decade.”
Blog
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Books of the Year - As Chosen by Verso
In between publishing the works of Žižek and plotting ways to destroy capitalism, many of us at Verso occasionally like to read books.
As usual we were stunned by how little the newspaper's books of the year seemed to represent our own reading so we gathered together our own top books of 2012 (and beyond) and the resulting list is a refreshing reminder of just how lively much of the independent publishing scene is.
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We're going ahead and calling this the "Dean Scream"
Jodi Dean recently spoke to Full Stop, Vice's Motherboard, and the New Left Project about her provocative and potentially very contentious new book, The Communist Horizon. Released a month ago, The Communist Horizon charts the re-emergence of communism as a magnet for political energy following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the stalling of the Occupy movement.
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The Limits of Communication: Jodi Dean in Guernica
In Jodi Dean’s upcoming manifesto, The Communist Horizon, she examines the experiences of the Occupy movement and urges the left to end its accommodation of capitalism and collectively plan how to shape a world that we already make in common.
But in an era when liking a Facebook post or retweeting a link has become an easy substitution for activism, how can we take meaningful action against neoliberalism? In this new excerpt in Guernica from The Communist Horizon, Jodi Dean spells out the dangers of TMI ("too much information") introduced by today's communications technology.
She writes:
Networked information technologies have been the means through which people have been subjected to the competitive intensity of neoliberal capitalism. Enthusiastically participating in personal and social media—I have broadband at home! My new tablet lets me work anywhere! With my smartphone, I always know what’s going on!—we build the trap that captures us, a trap that extends beyond global use of mobile phones and participation in social networks to encompass the production of these phones and the hardware necessary to run these networks.
Visit Guernica to read the excerpt in full.