'A figure like Plato or Hegel walks here among us!'-Slavoj ÄiPek<BR><BR>'An heir to Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser.'-New Statesman<BR><BR>'Shaking the foundations of Western liberal democracy.'-Times Higher Education Supplement<BR><BR>For over a century; Richard Wagner's music has been the subject of intense debate among philosophers, many of whom have attacked its ideological û some say anti-Semitic and reactionary û underpinnings. In this major new work, Alain Badiou, radical philosopher and keen Wagner enthusiast, offers a detailed reading of the critical responses to the composer's work, which include Adorno's writings on the composer and Wagner's co-option by Nazism, as well as more recent readings by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and others.<BR><BR>Slavoj ÄiPek provides an afterword, and both philosophers make a passionate case for re-examining the relevance of Wagner to the contemporary world.