Samir Amin, author of "Accumalation on a World Scale" and "The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World", critically examines Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's "Empire" and "Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire". Amin asks the question "Are Hardt and Negri analyzing a post-imperialist empire or the renewed expansion of imperialism?" He examines the analytical power of the concepts of "empire" and "multitude" finding them abstract and weak. Amin argues that the background political culture that stands behind Hardt and Negri's discourse is that of US liberalism. He concludes with an alternative historical materialist analysis.