Empire is a sweeping book with a big-picture vision. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue that while classical imperialism has largely disappeared, a new empire is emerging in a diffuse blend of technology, economics, and globalization. The book brings together unlikely bedfellows: Hardt, associate professor in Duke University's literature program, and Negri, among other things a writer and inmate at Rebibbia Prison in Rome. Empire aspires to the same scale of grand political philosophy as Locke or Marx or Fukuyama, but whether Hardt and Negri accomplish this daunting task is debatable. It is, however, an exciting book that is especially timely following the emergence of terrorism as a geopolitical force.

Hardt and Negri maintain that empire--traditionally understood as military or capitalist might--has embarked upon a new stage of historical development and is now better understood as a complex web of sociopolitical forces. They argue, with a neo-Marxist bent, that "the multitude" will transcend and defeat the new empire on its own terms. The authors address everything from the works of Deleuze to Jefferson's constitutional democracy to the Chiapas revolution in a far-ranging analysis of our contemporary situation. Unfortunately, their penchant for references and academese sometimes renders the prose unwieldy. But if Hardt and Negri's vision of the world materializes, they will undoubtedly be remembered as prophetic. --Eric de Place

安东尼奥·奈格里（Antonio Negri），著名的意大利籍政治理论与政治哲学家，著有《颠覆的政治：21世纪的宣言》、《愤怒的异类：斯宾诺莎的形而上学和政治学》等。

麦克尔·哈特（Michael Hardt）是美国年轻一代的学者，毕业于美国西雅图的华盛顿大学英文系，目前任教于杜克大学文学系，是公认的德勒兹（Deleuze）专家。