Alex Callinicos is Professor of European Studies at Kings College, London.

• IntroductionPart I: Four Kinds of Impasse1. Modernity and its Promises: Habermas and Bidet1.1 Between sociological suspicion and the rule of law: Jürgen Habermas1.2 With and against Marx and Rawls: Jacques Bidet2. Between Relativism and Universalism: French Critical Sociology2.1 Capitalism and its critiques: Boltanski and Chiapello2.2 The dialectic of universal and particular: Pierre Bourdieu3. Touching the Void: Badiou and Žižek3.1 The exception is the norm3.2 Miracles do happen: the ontology of Alain Badiou3.3 Unreal: Slavoj Žižek and the proletariat4. The Generosity of Being: Antonio Negri4.1 All is grace4.2 Negri's Grundrisse: revolutionary subjectivity versus Marxist 'objectivism'4.3 The refusal of transcendencePart II: Three Dimensions of Progress5. A Critical Realist Ontology5.1 The story so far5.2 Dimensions of realism6. Structure and Contradiction6.1 Realism about structures6.2 The primacy of contradiction6.3 A dialectic of nature?7. Justice and Universality7.1 From fact to value7.2 Equality and well-being7.3 Why equality matters8. Conclusion

"Sharp, lucid and wide-ranging, The Resources of Critique subjects modern political theory to the test of a robust materialism, and in doing so constitutes a vital contribution to such a theory in its own right."Terry Eagleton, University of Manchester