ABSTRACT
More years ago than it is now comfortable to remember, the academic journal Millennium asked me to review the most recent book by an American political theorist whose work I had long admired: William E. Connolly. That book, Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox, 2 marked a clear continuation of Connolly’s post-Nietzschean trajectory, a trajectory that was clear enough at least from Political Theory and Modernity 3 onwards, but it marked, I also thought, something of a change as well. Indeed, as I pointed out in the review, Connolly himself conceded as much by admitting that, while the book did show some continuity with his earlier work, he was also very critical of that earlier Connolly. However, since there were plenty of people around who still thought as he had once thought, he added in a characteristic Connollyesque aside, ‘why criticise yourself while there are others around who still share the defects in question?’
