Guy Debord, founder of the Situationist International and fomenter of the May 1968 revolt in France, was also the creator of six tantalizingly inaccessible films.Following the still-unsolved assassination of the films’ producer in 1984, all the films were withdrawn from circulation for nearly twenty years. In 2001 Debord’s widow Alice began rereleasing the films and asked Ken Knabb to translate the scripts into English. He agreed, and his translations were publishe...

Debord describes and critiques the way we live. The power in these ideas lies in their ability to question, identify, and name the common assumptions of the present. Developing the concept of The Spectacle, he describes the “gaze” of contemporary society. From its publication just before, and ultimately influencing the May 1968 revolt in Paris and Occupy Wall Street, this book continues to transform a wide range of progressive philosophical and political movements, most notably anti-capita...

'The Debordian analysis of modern life resonates more deeply and darkly than perhaps even its creator thought possible...' - The New Yorker'Never before has Debord's work seemed quite as relevant as it does now' - The Guardian'Guy Debord is a time bomb, and a difficult one to defuse.' - Michael LöwyFirst published in 1967, Guy Debord's stinging revolutionary critique of contemporary society, The Society of the Spectacle ha...

Contrary to popular misconceptions, Debord’s book is neither an ivory tower “philosophical” discourse nor a mere expression of “protest.” It is a carefully considered effort to clarify the most fundamental tendencies and contradictions of the society in which we find ourselves. This makes it more of a challenge, but it is also why it remains so pertinent nearly half a century after its original publication while countless other social theories and intellectual fads have come and gone.

Guy Debord was the founder of the Situationist International, the notorious avant-garde group that helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France, which brought the entire country to a standstill for several weeks. His book The Society of the Spectacle, originally published in Paris in 1967, has been translated into more than twenty other languages and is arguably the most important radical work of the twentieth century. Ken Knabb's meticulous new translation is the first edition in any lang...

The Society of the Spectacle is a carefully considered effort to clarify the most fundamental tendencies and contradictions of the society in which we find ourselves—in order to facilitate its overthrow.Guy Debord was the founder of the Situationist International, the notorious avant-garde group that helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France, which brought the entire country to a standstill for several weeks. His book The Society of the Spectacle

Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative as Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960s to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism, and everyday life in the late twentieth century. Now finally available in a superb English translation approved by the author, Debord’s text remains as crucial as ever for understa...

Guy Debord, founder of the Situationist International, fomenter of the May 1968 revolt in France, and author of The Society of the Spectacle, was also the creator of six tantalizingly inaccessible films. Technically and aesthetically, these films are among the most brilliantly innovative works in the history of the cinema. But they are not so much 'works of art' as carefully calculated subversive provocations. Following the still-unsolved Mafia-style assassination of the films' financer an...

First published in 1967, Guy Debord's stinging revolutionary critique ofcontemporary society, The Society of the Spectacle has since acquired acult status. Credited by many as being the inspiration for the ideasgenerated by the events of May 1968 in France, Debord's pitiless attackon commodity fetishism and its incrustation in the practices of everydaylife continues to burn brightly in today's age of satellite televisionand the soundbite. In Comments on the Society of the Spec...

Guy Debord's silver-tongue-in-cheek autobiography mixes precision and pastiche in a whirlwind account of philosophy, exploit, and inebriation. From the stark professions of Volume I to the illustrated sequences of Volume 2, Panegyric confronts us with a figure who strategically, demonically tried to wrest life from the disabling modern 'spectacle.'

Our competitive, service-oriented societies are taking a toll on the late-modern individual. Rather than improving life, multitasking, "user-friendly" technology, and the culture of convenience are producing disorders that range from depression to attention deficit disorder to borderline personality disorder. Byung-Chul Han interprets the spreading malaise as an inability to manage negative experiences in an age characterized by excessive positivity and the universal availability of people...

Evil is not confined to war or to circumstances in which people are acting under extreme duress. Today it more frequently reveals itself in the everyday insensitivity to the suffering of others, in the inability or refusal to understand them and in the casual turning away of one’s ethical gaze. Evil and moral blindness lurk in what we take as normality and in the triviality and banality of everyday life, and not just in the abnormal and exceptional cases.The distinctive kind of mor...