REVIEWS
“Power in Modernity is a startlingly original meditation on the meaning, morality, and madness of modern power. To explain the workings—and the violence—of ‘chains of power,’ Reed evokes the traces of the medieval trope by which the sacred and enduring authority of the king’s body politic overdetermined the king’s profane and mortal body. Following the new template of power brought to life with the overthrow of the ‘King’s Two Bodies,’ Reed leads us on a journey—from the Salem witch trials to the Whiskey Rebellion, from the French Revolution to ‘the edge of empire’—that leaves you breathless from the revelations and rebellions encountered along the way. In this unparalleled work of social theory, Reed has produced a masterpiece. But fair warning: Prepare to have your mind blown!”
— Margaret R. Somers, University of Michigan
“This exciting and innovative work breaks new ground in the study of power and modernity. Reed offers a new vocabulary and a historically informed theory of the relations of power that enriches, and in important ways goes beyond, the classic accounts of Lukes, Bourdieu, Foucault and Mann, one that emphasizes the forces of exclusion as much as inclusion in the struggle for recognition and redistribution. His interpretation of the transition to modernity as the agonistic replacement of the symbolic power of the King’s second body with the body of the people as the ultimate source of unity and authority in the political culture of the West is as compelling as it is original. A major push against the presentist complacency of contemporary sociology, the work articulates new directions in both social theory and historical sociology.”
— Orlando Patterson, Harvard University
“What is power, how does it work, and where does it come from? These urgent questions are at the heart of social theory’s contribution to empirical research and critique. Reed’s meticulous argumentation and breathtaking range make this book the indispensable synthesis for understanding power in society, history, and theory. He treats each example with subtle care while still leveraging the comparative power of very different cases. The tight prose leaves room neither for wasted words nor for sloppy ideas.”
— Andrew Perrin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Power, according to Isaac Ariail Reed, happens in a diagram. This is one way to present the movement of this wide-ranging book, indicating its U-turn from existing theories of power and its usefulness for the humanities. For Michel Foucault, power always issues in forms of domination. Whether administrative power, biopower, or a regime of knowledge, the outcome for subjects is to be dominated, that is, for their otherwise unregulated possibilities in the world to be constrained by an external force, even where the force gets internalized. What Reed’s book gives us is an alternative interpretation of power, no longer as force leading to domination, with its reflex image of an undominated ideal. Human beings occupy points in a diagram, and power flows through delegation rather than domination."
— Critical Inquiry
“Isaac Ariail Reed’s Power in Modernity: Agency Relations and the Creative Destruction of the King’s Two Bodies (2020) proposes a bold, imaginative thesis: modernity is characterized by the recurrent search for new figurations and myths that bind actors to those who command.”
— Law and Society Review
"The elegance of his framework [is] striking."
— International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society
“A work that stands out for its ambition, scholarly virtuosity, writerly flair, and brilliant reiteration that ‘big’ concepts do matter, irrespective of bureaucratic academic boundaries.”
— Social Forces
“Part general social theory with a cultural bent, part historical interpretation of the modern condition and its origins, Isaac Ariail Reed's Power in Modernity: Agency Relations and the Creative Destruction of the King's Two Bodies is a work of extraordinary ambition… Highly original… This is a remarkable book. A range of scholars will find much to use, from social theorists to historical and political sociologists, to sociologists of culture, to students of empire in general and settler-colonial histories in particular.”
— British Journal of Sociology
"Isaac Ariail Reed’s Power in Modernity pursues three aims: it offers a new theory of power, it puts forward an explanation for a couple of key events in the Atlantic revolutions of the 18th century, and it provides a new description of modernity."
— American Journal of Sociology
"Isaac Reed’s Power in Modernity is perhaps the most important social theory book published in a generation. . . It is ambitious, wide ranging, and offers a bold and innovative reading of what is arguably the discipline’s foundational and central concept, namely, modernity and the modern. This is the sort of book that you want to read, re-read, mull over, argue, and grapple with."
— American Journal of Cultural Sociology
"Vertiginously thoughtful. . . Reed has performed an invaluable service."
— Critical Historical Studies
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Two Parables from Kafka - Isaac Ariail Reed
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226689593.003.0001
[Franz Kafka;Judith Butler;Before the Law;culture;An Imperial Message;Pierre Bourdieu;law and society;chains of power;principal and agent;literary theory]
The introduction toPower in Modernityarticulates the need for a new theory of power via a contrast between two classic parables from Franz Kafka: "Before the Law" and "An Imperial Message." "Before the Law," which is used frequently in theory and philosophy (e.g. by Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, and Giorgio Agamben) is usually interpreted to be a parable aboutsymbolic violence. Whether it is taken to be about the state, morality in culture, or identity, the parable invokes a sociological nightmare from which the subject cannot awake. In contrast, "An Imperial Message" emphasizes the extension of networks of power through time and space, as well as the fantasy of those at the edge of large political formations that the center of power has something to say to them. By rendering power as long chains of delegation and domination, subject to modulation by fantasy and language, Kafka anticipates the perspective ofPower in Modernity,and its theory of rector, actor, and other. This provides a counterpoint to the now-standard ways of imagining the intersection of culture and power associated with Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault. (pages 1 - 6)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
1. Rector, Actor, Other - Isaac Ariail Reed
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226689593.003.0002
[power;principal and agent;recognition;political sociology;exclusion;cultural sociology;lord and bondsman;Hegel;Slavery and Social Death;dehumanization]
This chapter develops the language of rector, actor, and other, and of "persons with projects" to work toward a new theory of power. It does so in dialogue with pragmatist theories of action and the theories of Orlando Patterson, Rene Girard, James Coleman, Judith Butler, and G.W.F. Hegel. In hierarchical relations, a figure is elevated to a superior position with enhanced capacity, and to such a figure discretion accrues. This is the person or group who rules, and rule enables the accomplishment of projects. Such mastery—which accrues torectors—is dependent upon allies and subordinates (actors, who becomeagents) to whom tasks are delegated and from whom knowledge and expertise are gained, advice is taken, profits are stolen, and value is extracted. Power is dependent on its dependents, and an agent both stands in for, and works on behalf of, the rector. Actor becomes an agent by abdicating, in part, actor's own projects. If actor is an ally to rector, other stands outside the project, profaned. The radical uncertainty that other represents to rector and actor can become an synecdoche for the uncertainty of the world itself. There are four types of extreme alterity: enemy in war, slavery, invisibility, and scapegoat. (pages 9 - 29)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
2. Agency Relations - Isaac Ariail Reed
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226689593.003.0003
[Julia Adams;Principal and Agent;existentialism;power and control;pragmatism;cultural sociology;patriarchal patrimonialism;critical theory;delegation and domination;rule and rulers]
This chapter develops a concept of agency through which to study power and thereby mobilize the vocabulary proposed in the previous chapter (rector, actor, other). Agency is defined as the ability to send an agent into the world and bind said agent to act on behalf of the sender. This concept is developed via a careful interpretation of the work of the sociologist Julia Adams, whose work on principal-agent theory provided the definitive breakthrough to a new theory of culture and power. It also discusses the concept of "project" at length, relating it to pragmatist action theory, as well as to the work of Simone de Beauvoir. In provides a brief, retrospective rendering of the concerns of Karl Marx and Max Weber in terms of agency theory as well. The chapter proposes a fundamental distinction between action and agency – two terms that are often conflated in sociology. Action is universal – it is what all humans do as they move through the world. Agency is highly variable, and subject to construction and reconstruction in particular ways. The process of sending and binding an agent gives both order and dynamism to action in the world. (pages 30 - 50)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
3. Dimensions of Delegation and Domination - Isaac Ariail Reed
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226689593.003.0004
[materiality;power;political sociology;field theory;posthumanism;actor network theory;principal and agent;cultural turn;violence;Hannah Arendt]
This chapter argues that power has four dimensions—material, relational, discursive, and performative—and addresses the first three. The goal is to unpack how hierarchical ties between rector and actor are formed and how the "negative tie" between the rector-actor dyad and other is forged. The work of Alfred Gell is reconstructed as an ideal way to theorize materiality in the making and unmaking of social relations. Gell's work is contrasted with Actor Network Theory. For understanding relational power, it examines closely the work of John Levi Martin, and, for discursive power, considers Michel Foucault and Jeffrey C. Alexander. For a synthesis of material, relational and discursive power, it considers a key text by Chandra Mukerji. Throughout, the goal of the chapter is to develop these dimensions in relationship to the fundamental problematic of delegation and domination. In this way, sociological theories of power are used to articulate how actors become agents of rectors and how others are excluded. This focus is contrasted to theories of power in society that emphasize differentiation of spheres or zones of activity, such as field theory. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the "mechanization of the world," and an excursus on power and violence. (pages 51 - 73)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
4. Binding Performances - Isaac Ariail Reed
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226689593.003.0005
[revolution;power;Hannah Arendt;ritual;performance and performativity;Salem Witch Trials;Oscar Wilde;principal and agent;founders of the republic;sovereignty]
This chapter examines the performative dimension of power in depth, putting it in relationship to the material, relational, and discursive dimensions of power. It begins with the concept of illocutionary force, developed by J.L. Austin, and moves to the work of Judith Butler. Performative power involves (1) an accrual of agency, (2) the dependence of this accrual for its efficacy on the dramatic felicity of actions as they are interpreted by a public or audience, and therefore (3) the dependence of sending-and-binding, or exclusion from sending-and-binding, on the interpretation of front stage drama. The chapter examines two cases, so as to put performative power in relationship to to the overall theory of power being proposed: The Salem Witch Trials and the fall of Oscar Wilde. It also considers where and when in chains of power and their representation tends to flourish: at the extreme top and far bottom of power pyramids, in situations of spatial separation from organized power relations, and in inchoate interactional situations. Finally, the chapter considers the importance offounding performances,and does so via an examination of Hannah Arendt's workOn Revolution. (pages 74 - 96)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Introduction to Part II
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226689593.003.0006
[modernity;revolt and rebellion;Michel Foucault;liminality;comparative historical sociology;political sociology;crisis;violence;empire;performance and performativity]
The introduction to part II ofPower in Modernityintroduces the problematic of modernity—or, to be more specific, transitions to modernity in the Atlantic world—to the analysis. In studying modernity, a useful conceptual method is to examine revolt and rebellion; when power formations falter and violence breaks out, then we see the articulation of the underlying cognitive, moral, and aesthetic orders that render politics possible. It is also possible that we will see therein new formats of politics performed into being. In moments of revolt—trouble at the edge of empire—the imagination of the state and the logistics of the state's operation come together and co-illuminate each other in the urgency of circumstances. In other words, liminality reveals regime. Conceptual points of focus for building the historical interpretations that follow include: examining the nexus of violence and alliance in the making of politics; tracing signs across zones of activity; being aware that, during crisis, emic philosophies or right explode into speech and writing, and that, amidst revolt and uncertainty, everyone is a political philosopher; and utilizing the rector-actor-other vocabulary so that it allows us to see that the politics of representation admits not only struggle and strategy, but also fantasy.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
5. Agency, Alterity, and the Two Bodies of the King
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226689593.003.0007
[Bacon's Rebellion;Whiskey Rebellion;Herman Husband;modernity;millenarian Christianity;biblical republicanism;Ernst Kantorowicz;early American republic;first British empire;King's Two Bodies]
This chapter begins with a contrast: between the language and action of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., leader of Bacon's Rebellion (1676) and Herman Husband, a leader in the Whiskey Rebellion (1794). Bacon claimed to be a true representative of the King, over and against the Colony of Virginia's appointed governor. Husband preached millenarian visions of the perfect democratic republic. To understand the contrast, one needs to understand the pragmatic deploymentof the King's Two Bodies—the king's mortal, natural body and his ethereal, sacred "second body," represented on coins and seals, as well as at his funeral and in the next King's coronation—as a way to do politics in the first British Empire, and, more broadly, throughout the early modern Atlantic world. One effect of the three great Atlantic revolutions of the late eighteenth century was to creatively destroy the King's Two Bodies as the cultural background with which long chains of power were built. Without the King's Two Bodies to solve agency problems, different cultural solutions to the recurrent problems of shoring up hierarchy were needed. This is how to understand Herman Husband's enchanted sermons, which were obsessed with delegation from the body of the people to the leader.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
6. Performing the People’s Two Bodies in the Early American Republic
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226689593.003.0008
[Whiskey Rebellion;democracy;populism;Anthony Wayne;Alexander Hamilton;Little Turtle;performance;popular sovereignty;early American republic;American political culture]
This chapter analyzes the sovereign performances of the new government of the USA in the 1780s, 1790s, and 1800s, with special attention to the Whiskey Rebellion and the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, and the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. Via these events, a certain logic of modern politics—of inclusion in and exclusion from the political process—was performed into being. A specific configuration of sign and regime articulated "bodies of the people"—the political body of the republic, individual bodies of the electorate, and "grotesque" bodies that had to be excluded at all costs. It thus examines the "people's two bodies" as rendering of modern politics and republican government as a problem of meaning—specifically, the meanings necessary to glue together hierarchical relations between rectors and actors, to exclude others, and to forge the relationship between "the people" and the politicians they elected to represent them. Via a close reading of the negotiations that ended the Whiskey Rebellion, and a study of the change in frontier negotiations represented by the struggle between Anthony Wayne and Little Turtle, the longstanding problem of political philosophy familiar from Edmund Burke and Hannah Pitkin—political representation as delegation—is examined empirically as social dramaturgy.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
7. Within and without the King’s Two Bodies in London and Paris
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226689593.003.0009
[Leviathan;state and society;political sociology;Ernst Kantorowicz;Maximilien Robespierre;French Revolution;English Civil War;race and citizenship;The Black Atlantic;Michael Walzer]
Ernst Kantorowicz'sThe King's Two Bodiesreconstructed the origins and dynamics of a key piece of European political culture, according to which signs of state and signs of church were mixed together so as to shore up agency problems—that is, to construct a regime of delegation and domination. It is in these terms that two iconic moments in the history of political culture can be reconsidered: Thomas Hobbes' reaction to the English Civil War inLeviathanand the trial of King Louis XVI during the French Revolution. In these moments, the problem of how to do politics when the King's Two Bodies is no longer part of the easily accepted background of political life comes into the foreground. In these moments, the problem of who is in and who is out of the people becomes central to discursive power. Via the revolution in Saint Domingue, the extension of citizenship to non-whites recast the debates over the "body politic" in Paris between 1790 and 1794. More broadly, as popular sovereignty came to replace divine Kingship as the cultural basis of decision-making and hierarchy,who counted as a personbecame the central political question of the age.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
8. Modernity as the Creative Destruction of the King’s Two Bodies
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226689593.003.0010
[Michel Foucault;Carole Pateman;Friedrich Nietzsche;Whiskey Rebellion;Ernst Kantorowicz;Emile Durkheim;Max Weber;Frantz Fanon;modernity;critical theory]
This chapter places the historical interpretations and sociological analytic on power of the previous chapters within the project of critical theory. Beginning with an interpretation of a satirical play published about the Whiskey Rebellion in the newspapers of the early American republic, it then moves to think about the King's Two Bodies broadly as a recurrent format of fantasy—according to which the leader (King, Queen, Emperor) contains the political community as a whole. Transitions to modernity occur when sociopolitical movements creatively destroy the King's Two Bodies as a working background for doing politics. This perspective is then placed in relationship to other ways of conceptualizing modernity: as capitalism, disenchantment, differentiation, deliberative democracy, or the triumph of the biopolitical. Theories of contramodernity are also considered. In contrast to these, if modernity is the creative destruction of the King's Two bodies, then critique begins from a different starting point—the negative space left by the absence of the King, the reformulation of sacred and profane in modern political culture, and the continuation of myth into modern politics. Modernity reveals itself as a reconfiguration of bodies, politics, and authorship, whose contours provide both peril and possibility in the pursuit of life without the King.
