Étienne Balibar is a French Marxist philosopher and the most celebrated student of Louis Althusser. He is also one of the leading exponents of French Marxist philosophy and the author of Spinoza and Politics, The Philosophy of Marx and co-author of Race, Nation and Class and Reading Capital.

Immanuel Wallerstein is director of the Fernand Braudel Center at the State University of New York. His books include a three-volume study, The Modern World-System, Historical Capitalism, and, cowritten with Etienne Balibar, Race, Nation, Class.