Published on Through Europe
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus (1972)
A revolutionary classic. An attack against Lacan’s psychoanalisis and all the transcendental schools of thought depressing academia and activism. The first text to introduce desire as a materialistic component of political economy. A sort of Spinoza’s Ethics for the unconscious written like a novel of the beat generation. Of course its linguistic rupture has become trendy nowadays: better reading the original, still full of brilliant and consistent ideas.
Sylvère Lotringer and Christian Marazzi (eds), Autonomia: Post-Political Politics (1980)
To remember the initial historical engine of Italian Autonomia and the ‘dirty’ geneaology of many ideas that we still quote and use today. An antology of visual and theoretical documents that reflect vividly the energy and the class struggle of 70s.
Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body and Primitive Accumulation (2004)
This book is a visceral historical research on the social movements of Middle Ages and the rise of witch hunting. In a very clear way it shows how women’s body became ‘organic’ to the capitalistic accumulation of the upcoming industrial society. A masterpiece of femminism and a great historical fresco.
James G. Ballard, Millenium People (2003)
Ballard has always been a good cartographer of the dark side of the multitude. His fatalist attitude and his petty bourgeoisie just must be turned into the opposite. Important reading for the happy-go-lucky activist that is too much into Adbusters. It’s good sometimes to hang out and study the Lumpenproletariat.
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Commonwealth (2009)
An ambitious project to escape both the spectres of the 20th century: capitalism and state communism. A complex and innovative synthesis in the way it shows the economy of the common and how the common is today at the very core of capitalist exploitation. A crucial toolbox and upgrade of the current political grammar.
