Since the book’s first publication in 1988, Alain Badiou’s Being and Event has established itself of one of the most important and controversial works in contemporary philosophy and its author as one of the most influential thinkers of our time. Being and Event is a comprehensive statement of Badiou’s philosophical project and sees him recast the European philosophical tradition from Plato onwards, via a series of analyses of such key figures as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Rousseau, and Lacan. He thus develops the basis for a history of philosophy rivalling those of Heidegger and Deleuze in its depth.

Now publishing in the Bloomsbury Revelations series to mark 25 years since the book’s first publication in French, Being and Event is an essential read for anyone interested in contemporary thought.

"Badiou's approach is unique, rigorous, and interesting..." - Jill Stauffer, Theory & Event
"[Badiou] develops, in the central passages of the book, his central notions of situations and events, and devotes many, often arresting pages to elucidating the mechanism by which the latter productively disrupt the former. The structure of experience is not merely open to change, pregnant with contingent revolution.  This is a nice model and Badiou deploys it across a broad front." - Hugh Lawson-Tancred for The Liberal
"A variety of scholars, including philosophers, mathematicians, and intellectual historians, would do well to examine this volume and seek in it threads that warrant continued examination in an era of nanotechnology and political terrorism."- Francisca Goldsmith, Library Journal, April 1, 2006 * Library Journal *
"Two things are new in this much-anticipated translationof Badiou: the language and the preface. Both are instructive. TranslatorOliver Feltham stayed 'as close as possible to Badiou's syntax' but 'at theprice of losing fluidity.' Thankfully, Badiou addresses such dissonance and hislarger philosophical goals in an indispensable new preface—without which the 37weighty meditations might be lost to the layperson. Recommended..." - Publishers Weekly * Publishers Weekly *

Alain Badiou teaches at the École Normale Supérieure and at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris, France. In addition to several novels, plays and political essays, he has published a number of major philosophical works.

Oliver Feltham is Associate Professor of Philosophyat the American University of Paris, France.