An assessment of contemporary radical politics, inspired by the writings of Walter Benjamin and addressing themes from violence and representation to Romanticism and death.

AK Thompson is an activist, author, and social theorist. Currently a professor of social movements and social change at Ithaca College, his publications include Sociology for Changing the World: Social Movements/Social Research (2006), Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent (2010), Spontaneous Combustion: The Eros Effect and Global Revolution (2017) and co-edited Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle (2016). Between 2005 and 2012, he served on the Editorial Committee of Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action.

Foreword

Introduction……………………………………………... 7

I: Catastrophe

Chris Hedges Vs. CrimethInc…………………………… 22

Did Someone Say Riot?.................................................... 28

Making Friends With Failure…………………………… 51

"Daily Life" Not A "Moment" Like the Rest…………… 68

II: The Critical Moment

Waging War on Valentines Day………………………… 87

The Resonance of Romanticism………………………… 94

Co-opting Capitalism: Avatar and the Thing Itself.……. 127

Matter's Most Modern Configurations………………… 148

III: Progress

Obituary in Absentia…………………………………… 174

Occupation, Decolonization, and Reciprocal Violence... 179

The Work of Violence in the Age
of Repressive Desublimation………………................... 201

The Battle for Necropolis………………………………. 221

Index