.Coming at a time when scarce attention is being paid to new sources for a political impulse in the West, "Performance as Political Act" seeks to re-embody the political subject, arguing that when the mind has been dominated by mass communications as in Western capitalism, the body emerges as a site of opposition. Martin's study goes against the conventional wisdom of the three areas it seeks to synthesize: politics, the performing arts, and the body. Whereas most left political studies presuppose consciousness as necessary for political activity, the author contends that consciousness is...