Jacques Rancière is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris-VIII. His books include The Politics of Aesthetics, On the Shores of Politics, Short Voyages to the Land of the People, The Nights of Labor, Staging the People, and The Emancipated Spectator.

This tastily sardonic essay is partly a scholarly sprint through the history of political philosophy, and partly a very enjoyable stream of insults directed at rival penseurs.” —Guardian

“A piercing essay on the definitions and redefinitions of the term ‘democracy.’” —Times Higher Education Supplement

“In our time of the disorientation of the left, Rancière’s writings offer one the few consistent conceptualizations of how are to continue to resist.” —Slavoj Žižek