The Philosopher and His Poor

Rating:
Summary: Rancière's most interesting work.
Review: Here's to the belated arrival on the English scene of Rancière's most interesting work! Andrew Parker's Introduction, which tells the convoluted story of the book's prior aborted translation, is worth reading by itself. And Parker goes beyond this story to provide not only the most thorough bibliography on Rancière that an English reader will ever have seen, but a compelling explanation of the philosopher's place in relation to his, and our, contemporaries (Althusser, Balibar, Bourdieu), and of his importance. And the book itself is fascinating stuff: a journey through the philosophical tradition tracking the contempt-laden figure of the working man. The tone isn't as hard to pin down as some of Rancière's other work (e.g. the terrific "Ignorant Schoolmaster"), and is a little more scholarly, a little more humorous, and a little more accessible than you might expect, but it's still a difficult, intelligent, and rewarding text for the theoretically sophisticated reader.