Foundation and Empire: A

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire has beentranslated into ten languages and described as ‘themost successful work of political theory to come from the left for a generation ’ (Bull, 2001); in La Nouvel Observateur, its authors were described as the Marx and Engels of the internet age. The book has become hugely influential, not only as a work of theory, but also as a bible of the anti-globalisation movement. It is as likely to be discussed in the salons of the fashionable literati as in the pages of the Socialist Worker Party’s journal. ‘Empire ’ is the label given to the new global order and form of sovereignty over the global political economy that has succeeded imperialism and the nation state. Its apparatus of rule is decentred and de-territorialised, yet capable of incorporating all activities within its domain, managing hybrid identities and flexible hierarchies through its own fluid networks of command. The book’s sweep and ambition is huge: the analysis moves across juridical structures and practices and at least seven centuries, and through political and religious philosophy, political strategy and economi