The biopolitics of the war on terror

Life struggles, liberal modernity and the defence of logistical societies

By (author) Julian Reid

Paperback - £19.99

Publication date:

31 December 2006

Length of book:

160 pages

Publisher

Manchester University Press

Dimensions:

234x156mm

ISBN-13: 9780719074059

This is a book which completely overturns existing understandings of the origins and futures of the War on Terror for the purposes of International Relations theory. As the author shows, this is not a war in defence of the integrity of human life against an enemy defined simply by a contradictory will for the destruction of human life as commonly supposed by its liberal advocates. It is a war over the political constitution of life in which the limitations of liberal accounts of humanity are being put to the test if not rejected outright. Seeking a way out of this conflict must in turn mean learning to question the limits of existing understandings of what constitutes human life and its political potentialities. The pursuit of such a line of questioning is integral to the biopolitical analysis developed in this book.