The Plebeian Experience: A Discontinuous History of Political Freedom

Martin Breaugh

dic 2013 · Columbia University Press

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How do people excluded from political life achieve political agency? Through a series of historical events that have been mostly overlooked by political theorists, Martin Breaugh identifies fleeting yet decisive instances of emancipation in which people took it upon themselves to become political subjects. Emerging during the Roman plebs's first secession in 494 BCE, the plebeian experience consists of an underground or unexplored configuration of political strategies to obtain political freedom. The people reject domination through political praxis and concerted action, therefore establishing an alternative form of power.

Breaugh's study concludes in the nineteenth century and integrates ideas from sociology, philosophy, history, and political science. Organized around diverse case studies, his work undertakes exercises in political theory to show how concepts provide a different understanding of the meaning of historical events and our political present. The Plebeian Experience describes a recurring phenomenon that clarifies struggles for emancipation throughout history, expanding research into the political agency of the many and shedding light on the richness of radical democratic struggles from ancient Rome to Occupy Wall Street and beyond.

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Martin Breaugh was educated at the University of Paris VII-Denis-Diderot and is associate professor of political theory at York University (Toronto). His research focuses on the theory and practice of emancipatory politics and radical democracy.

Lazer Lederhendler is a full-time freelance literary translator. His translations of contemporary Québécois fiction have earned various distinctions in Canada and abroad. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Dick Howard is distinguished professor of philosophy at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He is the author of The Primacy of the Political: A History of Political Thought from the Greeks to the French and American Revolutions and The Specter of Democracy: What Marx and Marxists Haven't Understood and Why.