Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power

Reviews / Votes

Haiven's provocative book does justice to a topic that has been too long neglected. He not only explains the constraints that are everywhere placed on our political imagination, but also makes a strong case for transcending them. * Andrew Ross, author of Creditocracy and the Case for Debt Refusal * The right has taken possession of the field of values with a politics that is inadequate to deal with the crises therein, whereas the left has the concepts needed to deal with the crises but has all but abandoned the field. This is a conundrum that must be explored and solved. Haiven is to be thanked for formulating this problem so precisely. * George Caffentzis, author of In Letters of Blood and Fire * Fatalism and futility beware! We now have a handbook for the invention of a new commons. In Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power, Max Haiven explains how and why we need to struggle to take back creativity, imagination and our sense of collective purpose from those forces that seek to use it to their own ends. With the help of this book, another world really is possible. * Imre Szeman, Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies, University of Alberta * In this inspired and engaged book, Max Haiven provides us with what he calls a series of exercises of the imagination. Readers will emerge from these invigorating sessions, which rework the machineries of finance, labor and activism, equipped with a contemporary radicalism to face the demands of a full immersion in the possibilities and complexities of our moment. * Randy Martin, New York University * Against the bankruptcy of liberal politics, Max Haiven puts forward a renewed called for the elaboration of others values, lives, and ways of being together. This is a radicalism based not upon pie-in-the-sky ideas, but on expanding the commons of a social reproduction not premised on capital's measure but its own, extending and learning from practices already in motion. Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power helps bring us closer to the utopia that is within our grasp. * Stevphen Shukaitis, author of Imaginal Machines: Autonomy and Self-Organization in the Revolutions of Everyday Life * [Haiven's] consideration of the potential cracks in the status quo, and how these might provide spaces for the collective work of imagining alternatives, demonstrates the ways in which global activist networks have already started transforming our world. * TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies *