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''[[Badiou ]] and [[Politics]]'' offers a much-anticipated [[interpretation ]] of the [[work ]] of the influential [[French ]] [[philosopher ]] [[Alain ]] Badiou. Countering [[ideas ]] of the philosopher as a dogmatic, absolutist, or even mystical thinker enthralled by the force of the [[event ]] as a radical break, [[Bruno Bosteels ]] reveals Badiou’s deep and ongoing investment in the [[dialectic]]. Bosteels draws on all of Badiou’s writings, from the philosopher’s student days in the 1960s to the [[present]], as well as on Badiou’s exchanges with [[other ]] thinkers, from his avowed “masters” Louis [[Althusser ]] and Jacques [[Lacan]], to interlocutors including Gilles [[Deleuze]], [[Slavoj Žižek]], Daniel Bensaïd, Jacques [[Derrida]], Ernesto [[Laclau]], and [[Judith ]] [[Butler]]. Bosteels tracks the philosopher’s [[political ]] activities from the events of May [[1968 ]] through his embrace of Maoism and the work he has done since the 1980s, helping to mobilize France’s illegal immigrants or ''sans-papiers''. Ultimately, Bosteels argues for [[understanding ]] Badiou’s [[thought ]] as a revival of [[dialectical ]] [[materialism]], and he illuminates the philosopher’s understanding of the task of [[theory]]: to define a [[conceptual ]] [[space ]] for [[thinking ]] [[emancipatory politics ]] in the present.