This was the first English publication of a selection of significant essays by Mbembe, one of the most influential theorists of postcolonialism. The compilation revisits and expands the arguments Mbembe presented in his 1992 text Provisional Notes on the Postcolony, in which he considered ‘the banality of power’ in Africa. His work also focuses on embodiment, subjectivity, death, and utopia in figuring resistance to oppression and the preservation of autonomy.