The Crisis of Theory, available in paperback for the first time, tells the story of the political and intellectual adventures of E. P. Thompson, one of Britain's foremost twentieth-century thinkers. Drawing on extraordinary new unpublished documents, Scott Hamilton shows that all of Thompson's work, from his acclaimed histories to his voluminous political writings to his little-noticed poetry, was inspired by the same passionate and idiosyncratic vision of the world. Hamilton shows the connection between Thompson's famously ferocious attack on the 'Stalinism in theory' of Louis Althusser and his assaults on positivist social science in books like The making of the English working class, and he produces previously unseen evidence to show that Thompson's hostility to both left and right-wing forms of authoritarianism was rooted in first-hand experience of violent political repression. This book will appeal to scholars and general readers with an interest in left-wing politics and theory, British society, twentieth-century history, modernist poetry, and the philosophy of history.

Challenging chaos theory and catastrophe theory, the author contends that with the fragmented state of knowledge in contemporary times, these dynamic equilibrium-oriented theories are inadequate for generating new knowledge. Arguing that knowledge is dynamic and disequilibrium-oriented, Rich provides a new theoretical approach—crisis theory—and applies it to the problems of economics, politics, and the natural sciences. Crisis theory is constructed to deal with changes in problem areas, to allow for the development of new theories in both existing and emerging problem areas, and to allow for the exchange of information within opposing theories in economics and politics. The book is composed of three parts. Part 1 discusses the role of knowledge and its anti-realism in our contemporary era and establishes the need for a new theory. Part 2 develops the schematic of crisis theory. In Part 3, the theory is applied to the problems of long-term business cycle theories, the nine implications of Mancur Olson's logic, the problems of the postindustrial future-oriented countries, and the paradox of industrialization.

The theory of crisis has always played a central role within Marxism, and yet has been one of its weakest elements. Simon Clarke's important new book provides the first systematic account of Marx's own writings on crisis, examining the theory within the context of Marx's critique of political economy and of the dynamics of capitalism. The book concentrates on the scientific interpretation and evaluation of the theory of crisis, and will be of interest to mainstream economists, as well as to sociologists, political scientists and students of Marx and Marxism.

In a call to planetary thinking, planetary building, and planetary dwelling, Norman K. Swazo discusses Heidegger's thought as it relates to issues of global politics, specifically, the domain of world order studies. In the first division of the book, Swazo provides a theoretical critique of world order studies understood in the two modes of normative and technocratic futurism. The book's second division includes a preliminary attempt to clarify what Heidegger's call for "essential thinking" entails for political thinking. This signifies a new beginning for political discourse, heralded in the possibility of "essential political thinking" that Swazo calls "autarchology."

This collection of essays looks at recent developments in the crisis theory of capitalist development and relates such theories directly to the current patterns of economic, political technological and cultural changes associated with societal restructuring in industrialized countries.

Keynesian economics claimed to have overcome the problem of economic depressions. However, as Mattick argues that crises are inherent within capitalism and that neither the market nor Keynesianism can stop "the steady deterioration of the economy". Written in 1974, Economic Crisis and Crisis Theory is one of Mattick's most valuable contributions to the Marxist critique of political economy and radical theory in general.

We are living in an age of crisis—or an age in which everything is labeled a crisis. Financial, debt, and refugee “crises” have erupted. The word has also been applied to the Arab Spring and its aftermath, Brexit, the 2016 U.S. election, and many other international events. Yet the term has contradictory political and strategic meanings for those challenging power structures and those seeking to preserve them. For critics of the status quo, can the rhetoric of crisis be used to foment urgency around issues like climate change and financialization, or does framing a situation as a “crisis” play into the hands of the existing political order, which then seeks to tighten the leash by creating a state of emergency? Critical Theory at a Crossroads presents conversations with prominent theorists about the crises that have marked the past years, the protest movements that have risen up in response, and the use of the term in political discourse. Tariq Ali, Rosi Braidotti, Wendy Brown, Maurizio Lazzarato, Angela McRobbie, Jean-Luc Nancy, Antonio Negri, Jacques Rancière, Saskia Sassen, and Joseph Vogl offer their views on contemporary challenges and how we might address them, candidly discussing the alternatives that new social movements have offered, alongside an exchange between Zygmunt Bauman and Roberto Esposito on theories of community. Sparring over crucial developments in these past years of catastrophe and the calamity of everyday life under capitalism, they shed light on how crises and the discourse of crisis can both obscure and reveal fundamental aspects of modern societies.