Reading A Thousand Plateaus

Henry Somers‑Hall is Professor of Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has written extensively on Gilles Deleuze and the broader twentieth‑century French philosophical tradition. He is the author of Hegel, Deleuze and the Critique of Representation (SUNY Press, 2012), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition (Edinburgh University Press, 2013) and Judgement and Sense in Modern French Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2022), and co‑editor (with Daniel W. Smith) of The Cambridge Companion to Deleuze (Cambridge University Press, 2012), (with Jeffrey A. Bell and James Williams) A Thousand Plateaus and Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press, 2018), and (with Jeffrey A. Bell) The Deleuzian Mind (Routledge, 2025).

• AcknowledgementsNote on ReferencingIntroduction: Thinking As a NomadReadings of A Thousand PlateausReading A Thousand PlateausNotes on the textMetaphysical Introduction to A Thousand PlateausIntroductionThe Sedentary DistributionCriticisms of the Sedentary DistributionThe Nomadic DistributionChange and the DiagramThe Countersignifying Regime of SignsConclusionPolitical Introduction to A Thousand PlateausIntroductionTranscendental Illusion and Political OrganisationMolar and Molecular, Sedentary and NomadicBinding and Surplus LabourThe War Machine and FascismThe Politics of the Line of FlightConclusion1. Rhizome1.1 Introduction (3-4)1.2 The Root Book (5)1.3 The Fascicular Root System (5-6)1.4 Rhizome (6-7)1.5 Principles of Connection and Heterogeneity (7-8)1.6 Principle of Multiplicity (8-9)1.7 Principle of Asignifying Rupture (9-12)1.8 Principle of Cartography and Decalcomania (12-16)1.9 The East and the West (18-21)1.10 Conclusion (21-24)2. One or Several Wolves2.1 Introduction2.2 The Unconscious (26-8)2.3 The Wolf Man (28-30)2.4 Crowds, Packs, and Multiplicities (30-35)2.5 Conclusion: Multiplicities in practice (35-8)3. The Geology of Morals3.1 Introduction3.2 Simondon and Individuation 1233.3 Hjelmslev and Double Articulation (42-44)3.4 Double Articulation and Strata (40-42)3.5 Cuvier, Geoffroy, and Darwin (45-49)3.6 ‘Several Conclusions’ on Strata (49-57)3.7 Content and Expression in Physical and Organic Strata (57-60)3.8 The Linguistic Stratum (60-64)3.9 Three Problems (64-71)4. Postulates of Linguistics4.1 Introduction: What are the Postulates of Linguistics?4.2 Language is Informational and Communicational (75-85)4.3 There is an Abstract Machine of Language That Does Not Appeal to Any ‘Extrinsic’ Factor (85-91)4.4 There Are Constants or Universals of Language That Enable Us to Define It as a Homogeneous System (92-100)4.5 “Language Can Be Scientifically Studied Only under the Conditions of a Standard or Major Language” (100-110)5. On Several Regimes of Signs5.1 Introduction5.2 The Pre-Signifying Regime of Signs (117-8)5.3 Faciality (111-115)5.4 The Signifying Regime of Signs (115-117)5.5 The Countersignifying Regime (118)5.6 The Postsignifying Regime (119-134)5.7 Mixtures and Transformations (134-140)5.8 The Diagram (140-148)6. How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs?6.1 Introduction (149-150)6.2 Spinoza and Us (153)6.3 Masochism (155-161)6.4 Spinoza and Bodies without Organs (151-3)6.5 The Cancerous BwO (162-4)6.6 Conclusion: ‘The BwO is an egg’ (164-6)7. Faciality 7.1 Introduction (167-8)7.2 Three False Origins of the Face (168-172)7.3 Theorems of Deterritorialization, or Machinic Propositions (172-175)7.4 Face and Landscape (175-186)7.5 The Countersignifying Regime and the Face (186-191)8. Three Novellas, or ‘What Happened?’8.1 Introduction (192-195)8.2 First Novella: ‘In the Cage,’ Henry James (195-8)8.3 Second Novella: ‘The Crack-Up,’ F. Scott Fitzgerald (198-200)8.4 Third Novella: ‘The Story of the Abyss and the Spyglass,’ Pierrette Fleutiaux (200-202)8.5 Four Problems (202-207)9. Micropolitics and Segmentarity9.1 Introduction9.2 Primitive and Civilised Segmentarity (209-213)9.3 Masses and Classes (213-222)9.4 Concrete Machines and Abstract Machines (222-227)9.5 Four Problems (227-229)9.6 Fascism (213-215, 229-231)10. Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible…10.1 Introduction10.2 Memories of a Moviegoer (233)10.3 Memories of a Naturalist (233-7)10.4 Memories of a Bergsonian (237-9)10.5 Memories of a Sorcerer I (239-243)10.6 Memories of a Sorcerer II (243-248)10.7 Memories of a Sorcerer III (248-252)10.8 Memories of a Theologian (252-3)10.9 Memories of a Spinozist, I (253-256)10.10 Memories of a Spinozist, II (256-260)10.11 Memories of a Haecceity (260-5)10.12 Memories of a Plan(e) Maker (265-272)10.13 Memories of a Molecule (272-286)10.14 Memories of the Secret (286-290)10.15 Memories and Becomings, Points and locks (291-298)10.16 Becoming-Music (299-309)11. Of the Refrain11.1 Introduction11.2 The Refrain (310-312)11.3 Milieus and Rhythms (313-314)11.4 From Milieu to Territory (314-323)11.5 Milieu, Territory, Cosmos (323-327)11.6 Assemblages and the Problem of Consistency (327-337)11.7 Classicism, Romanticism, and the Modern (337-347)11.8 Painting and Music (347-50)12. Treatise on Nomadology: The War Machine12.1 Introduction12.2 Dumézil, Go, and Kleist (351-6)12.3 Clastres and Societies against States (357-361)12.4 Nomad Science (361-374)12.5 Noology and the Image of Thought (374-380)12.7 Three Aspects of the War Machine (380-387)12.8 Nomad existence necessarily implies the numerical elements of a war machine (387-394)12.9 Nomad existence has for “affects” the weapons of a war machine (395-403)12.10 How do the nomads invent or find their weapons? (403-415)12.11 The War Machine and War (416-423)13. Apparatus of Capture13.1 Introduction13.2 Dumézil and the Two Poles of the State (424-427)13.3 Which Comes First? (427-437)13.4 Capture (437-448)13.5 The State and its Forms (448-460)13.6 Axiomatics and the Present Day Situation (460-473)14. The Smooth and The Striated14.1 Introduction14.2 The Technological Model (475-477)14.3 The Musical Model (477-8)14.4 The Maritime Model (478-482)14.5 The Mathematical Model (482-488)14.6 The Physical Model (488-492)14.7 The Aesthetic Model: Nomad Art (492-500)15. Conclusion: Concrete Rules and Abstract Machines15.1 Introduction15.2 S: Strata, Stratification (502-3)15.3 A: Assemblages (503-5)15.4 R: Rhizome (505-6)15.5 C: Plane of Consistency, Body without Organs (506-8)15.6 D: Deterritorialization (508-10)15.7 M: Abstract Machines (Diagram and Phylum) (510-14)Bibliography

Henry Somers-Hall has written the book you despaired of needing because you knew it did not exist. Both a genuine interpretative feat and a uniquely valuable work of research, it will find a favored place in our minds, references, and shelves.