From supply chains to surveillance, how logistics drives modern power—and its consequences.
Movement is the lifeblood of capital, even more so than growth. If goods, people, and information don't flow, then profits don't either. Ensuring that laborers, shipping containers, media, commercially valuable data, and much else are in the right place at the right time demands a subtle choreography. Enter logistics.
Susan Zieger argues that logistics is the foundation of power in our time. Blending detailed historical research with real-life stories that crystallize the human and ecological consequences of supply chains, Logistics and Power shows how the pursuit of efficient movement has come to organize economies while disordering societies and selves. Logistics emerges as the key to consumerism and the experience of work. It justifies corporate and police surveillance, illuminates patterns of migration and exploitation, and explains why the oceans are clotted with plastic. It is in the sphere of logistics that capitalist motives are most dramatically in tension with planetary needs.
A headfirst encounter with the obscure forces subordinating all goals below those of capital, Logistics and Power points the way to an alternative: a mindful and politically attentive kind of movement compatible with human thriving.
Susan Zieger is Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside and author of The Mediated Mind and Inventing the Addict.
"Through vivid storytelling, Logistics and Power reveals how supply chains shape our world. Susan Zieger deftly interweaves multiple narratives to show how logistics—far more than moving stuff around—functions as both physical infrastructure and conceptual framework, transforming our understanding of modernity, power, and resistance."—Brett Neilson, coauthor of The Rest and the West: Capital and Power in a Multipolar World
"We can think logistically about the world to the extent that it has become logistical. This book captures that change in flight, a bravura exposition of a world-picture coming into view even as the lineaments of that world—our world—undergo their own sea change."—Joshua Clover, author of Riot. Strike. Riot: The New Era of Uprisings
"Zieger brilliantly exposes the subtle yet pervasive structures of logistical power and shows why reimagining them is key to a more just future. She not only illuminates the circuits of exploitation at the heart of capitalism's supply chains but also sketches out counter-logistical possibilities that harness collective action to resist this system. Her compelling prose invites us to move beyond convenience and guilt, urging us to envision a future where we can all move—and be moved—in more collective and transformative ways."—Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, author of Speculative Communities: Living with Uncertainty in a Financialized World
"Logistics and Power imaginatively weaves together disciplines, geographies, and historical periods to create a new and truly exceptional vision of the supply chain. A beautifully composed counter-logistical story about one of the most complex objects of our time, this book is essential reading."—Nicole Starosielski, author of Media Hot and Cold
400 pp.6 x 9Illus: 15 b/w illustrations
9780520402874$28.95|£25.00Hardcover
Sep 2025