Book News: The small, grand, incendiary manifesto

The Manifesto Handbook: 95 Theses on an Incendiary Form

By JULIAN HANNA

Zero Books, 2020; Paperback: $19.95

https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/our-books/manifesto-handbook

The Manifesto Handbook describes the hidden life of an undervalued genre: the conduit for declarations of principle, advertisements for new “isms,” and provocations in pamphlet form. Often physically slight and small in scale, the manifesto is always grand in style and ambition. A bold, charismatic genre, it has founded some of the most important and revolutionary movements in modern history, from the declaration of wars and the birth of nations to the launch of countless social, political and artistic movements worldwide. 

Julian Hanna provides a brief genealogy of the genre, analyzes its complex speaking position, traces the material process of manifesto making from production to dissemination, unpacks its extremist underbelly, and follows the twenty-first century resurgence of the manifesto as a re-politicized and reinvigorated digital form. The book's visually striking, manifesto-like structure is divided into 95 theses, each with a short title introducing the topic (e.g. Performance, Lists, Feminist Futures). In terms of style, the book is as inventive and provocative as the genre it describes: blending sharp fragments, riveting anecdotes, a broad historical overview, and tips for manifesto writers of all kinds, it is always fresh, engaging and challenging.

BOOK NEWS is an online-only feature announcing new publications in modernist and contemporary literary studies. These announcements do not constitute an endorsement by the Journal of Modern Literature.

"A full-length book like this is long overdue, and it couldn't be better timed with the current climate of polarizing rhetoric, post-truth, Antifa, engaged art, etc. The brief history plus how-to lesson is a winning combination." 

-- Mark Yakich, Gregory F. Curtin, S.J., Distinguished Professor of English, Loyola University New Orleans

"The Manifesto Handbook is something like a meta-manifesto, which proclaims the joy and necessity of the manifesto form. Julian Hanna shows us how to both read them and write them, to have some fun and maybe change the world. Read this book, find your people, expose the enemy of the good life - and write your own!" 

-- McKenzie Wark, Professor of Culture and Media, The New School

JULIAN HANNA is assistant professor of Culture Studies at Tilburg University, The Netherlands.