It is frequently said that we are living through the end of politics,the end of social upheavals, the end of utopian folly. Consensualrealism is the order of the day. But political realists, remarksJacques Ranciere, are always several steps behind reality, and the onlything which may come to an end with their dominance is democracy. 'Wecould', he suggests, 'merely smile at the duplicity of theconclusion/suppression of politics which is simultaneously asuppression/conclusion of philosophy.' This is precisely the task whichRanciere undertakes in these subtle and perceptive essays. He arguespersuasively that since Plato and Aristotle politics has alwaysconstructed itself as the art of ending politics, that realism isitself utopian, and that what has succeeded the polemical forms ofclass struggle is not the wisdom of a new millennium but the return ofold fears, criminality and chaos. Whether he is discussing theconfrontation between Mitterrand and Chirac, French working-classdiscourse after the 1830 revolution, or the ideology of recent studentmobilizations, his aim is to restore philosophy to politics and givepolitics back its original and necessary meaning: the organization ofdissent.