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The works of Gilles Deleuze—on [[Gilles Deleuzecinema]]—on cinema, [[literature]], painting, and philosophy—have made him one of the most widely read thinkers of his generation. This compact critical volume is not only a powerful reappraisal of Deleuze’s [[thought]], but also the first major [[work ]] by [[Alain ]] [[Badiou ]] that became available in [[English]]. Badiou compellingly redefines what it means to be “Deleuzian”, throwing down the gauntlet in the battle over the very [[meaning ]] of Deleuze’s legacy.

For those who view [[Deleuze ]] as the apostle of [[desire]], flux, and [[multiplicity]], Badiou’s book is a deliberate provocation. Through a deep [[philosophical ]] engagement with his writings, Badiou contends that Deleuze is not the Dionysian thinker of becoming he took himself to be; on the contrary, he is an ascetic [[philosopher ]] of [[Being ]] and Oneness. Deleuze’s [[self]]-declared anti-Platonism fails—and that, in Badiou’s view, may ultimately be to his credit. “Perhaps it is not Platonism that has to be overturned,” Badiou writes, “but the anti-Platonism taken as evident throughout this entire century.”

This volume draws on a five-year correspondence undertaken by Badiou and Deleuze near the end of Deleuze’s [[life]], when the two put aside long-standing [[political ]] and philosophical differences to [[exchange ]] [[ideas ]] [[about ]] similar problems in their work. Badiou’s incomparably attentive readings of key Deleuzian [[concepts ]] radically revise reigning [[interpretations]], offering new insights to even the veteran Deleuze reader and serving as an entree to the controversial [[notion ]] of a “restoration” of [[Plato ]] advocated by Badiou—in his own [[right ]] one of the most original [[figures ]] in postwar [[French ]] [[philosophy]].

The result is a critical ''tour de force'' that repositions Deleuze, one of the most important thinkers of our [[time]], and introduces Badiou to English-[[speaking ]] readers.