Guy Debord - Softcover

Jappe, Anselm

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520212053 ISBN 13: 9780520212053

Publisher: University of California Press, 1999

Synopsis

This is the first serious intellectual biography of Guy Debord, prime mover of the Situationist International (1957-1972) and author of The Society of the Spectacle, perhaps the seminal book of May 1968 in France. Anselm Jappe rejects recent attempts to set Debord up as a "postmodern" icon, arguing that he was a social theorist in the Hegelian-Marxist tradition—not a precursor of Jean Baudrillard but an heir of the young Georg Lukács of History and Class Consciousness (1923). Neither hagiographical nor sectarian, Guy Debord places its subject squarely in his historical context: the politicizing Letterist and Situationist "anti-artists" who, in the European aftermath of World War II, sought to criticize and transcend the Surrealist legacy. The book offers a lively, critical, and unusually reliable account of Debord's "last avant-garde" on its way from radical bohemianism to revolutionary theory. Jappe also discusses Debord's films, which are largely inaccessible at present. This English language edition of the book has been revised by the author and features an updated critical bibliography of Debord and the Situationists.

About this title

Review:

"A clear-headed account [and quoting TLS, 10/4/96 review of French edition), 'far and away the best we have so far.'" --"Times Literary Supplement

About the Author:

Anselm Jappe was born in Bonn in 1962 and has lived in Rome since 1983. Apart from Guy Debord, which has now appeared in six languages, he has published Schade um Italien! (1997) and is a frequent contributor to theoretical journals in various countries. Donald Nicholson-Smith has previously translated Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle and Raoul Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life. T. J. Clark's most recent book is Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism (1999).

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0520212053
• ISBN 13: 9780520212053
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 206