“A thinker of tremendously invigorating moral fervour, able to rise to Swiftian scorn or fine Cocteau-like flourishes….Badiou’s passionate belief in human autonomy is inspiring”

– Daily Telegraph

“Scarcely any other moral thinker of our day is as politically clear-sighted and courageously polemical, so prepared to put notions of truth and universality back on the agenda.”

– Terry Eagleton

“In Polemics, there are withering critiques and witty demolitions of the so-called war on terror, the invasion of Iraq, the bombardment of Serbia and the pantomime of parliamentary democracy … There is a delightful Swiftian satire on the Islamic headscarf affair and a denunciation of the racism that led to the riots in the banlieues late in 2005.”

– Simon Critchley, London Review of Books

“Shaking the foundations of Western liberal democracy.”

– Times Higher Education Supplement

“[Badiou’s] argumentative vigour is undeniable. There is a terrific excoriation of the French burka ban as symptomatic of the enforced display of women, a trenchant series of investigations into “Uses of the Word ‘Jew’”, and a “Manifesto of Affirmationist Art” that is a welcome anecdote to lazy anti-modernism.”

– Steven Poole, Guardian