The first English-language introduction to the entire work of world-renowned theorist and activist Antonio Negri, this book reconstructs his philosophy and critically discusses the existence of the revolutionary power of the multitude.

Although the existence of the power of the multitude becomes the dominant topic of Negri's later writings, beginning with the radical vision of imperial power found in Empire, Roberto Nigro demonstrates how the core concepts of Negri’s work were elaborated in the decades preceding Empire and in the historical-political conjuncture dominated by the political and social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Nigro shows that Negri's insistence on the ontological dimension counters the poverty of the present. “Poverty of the present” is understood as the impossibility of finding practical answers to the question of revolutionary subjectivity. If social movements fail to give themselves a lasting political organization, if subjects languish under the yoke of capitalist domination, how can one orient oneself in such circumstances?

Authoritative, informative and engaging, Subversive Negri will be essential reading for both the academy and politically engaged audience of non-specialist readers.