In his lively and engaging book Riot. Strike. Riot, Joshua Clover presents a unique (and avowedly Marxist) argument for why he thinks employed workers are less likely to be the source of social upheaval and why, he argues, riots are replacing strikes as the major expression of social revolt in today’s turbulent capitalism.

There is a lot of interesting and original material in this book. Much of what Clover says about the turbulence of contemporary capitalism and even its apparent slowing down is on the money, even if one disagrees with some specifics of his analysis. More than that, he points to a rise in social struggle, a promise that everyone on the Left is certain to relish.

It is not surprising that this work has stirred a good deal of attention and debate regarding new forms of upsurge — the Occupy movement, uprisings against police brutality in African-American communities, the Arab Spring, and others — that demand careful attention, all the more so today in light of the multifaceted anti-Trump “resistance.”