Antagonistics addresses central political and theoretical questions: how should
we conceive the relations between neo-imperial warfare and neoliberalism, or
American hegemony and capitalist globalization? Reflections on the major issues
of the new international order are set within a larger framework, tracing the
intertwined evolution of the modern state system and the capitalist mode of
production, from the Treaty of Westphalia to the Occupation of Iraq. Gopal
Balakrishnan interrogates three key political perspectives--including
Tocqueville's liberalism, Althusser's Marxism and Schmitt on the radical
right--for their insights on state power and civil society, democracy, and
class. Antagonistics combines intellectual history, political philosophy, and
historical sociology to produce a highly distinctive portrait of