Published at the height of the so-called "material turn" in the humanities and social sciences, Political Matter gathers many of the thinkers who reshaped political theory by insisting that politics is never exclusively human.

Rather than treating matter as passive or inert, these essays ask what happens when technologies, infrastructures, objects, environments and nonhuman actors are understood as participants in political life. The collection sits at the intersection of science and technology studies (STS), political ecology, geography and continental philosophy, and remains an important snapshot of a moment that continues to shape contemporary theory.

The contributors include Jane Bennett's influential essay "Thing-Power," Isabelle Stengers on nonhumans and political theory, Nigel Thrift, William Connolly, Andrew Barry, Noortje Marres and others who would become central figures in debates around new materialism, affect, ecology and technological politics. Rather than presenting a single argument, the book traces a series of overlapping questions: How do infrastructures govern? What political agency do objects possess? How should democracy account for scientific knowledge, environmental systems and technological assemblages? For readers of Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, Karen Barad, Timothy Morton or contemporary media theory, this remains a rich and frequently cited collection.

University of Minnesota Press paperback, 2010. Very good condition with light shelf wear and a clean, unmarked interior aside from a few pencil marks.