Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5162 in Books
• Published on: 1992-01
• Original language: French
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 124 pages

Customer Reviews

society of the spectacular!
This book - in conjunction with some secondary literature and other NOT RANDOM situ texts - is one of the few which can come to revolutionise your perception ALL THE WAY DOWN. Of course : it is obscure and relies on a familiarity with alot of marxist terminology - but it bares, and demands, repeated readings which demonstrates how these concepts have alot of life in them! If I was to formulate its thesis then today it would be : you are always watching others do things instead of doing something which would exceed the gaze of another watching you. This is the road towards de-reification et al...

Disconcertingly accurate statement of things in general.
Don't let the other reviews put you off, this is a great book, although I've not read this translation. It's nothing as tedious as a critique of consumerism or the like - its a really revolutionary book. The surprise that such a thing can exist tends to disorientate its younger readers for a while.
Get it, read it, resist his tendency to overwhelm you with his impressive grasp of reality, and then go around feeling superior to everybody else while musing on how to overthrow the autonomous rule of our products, preferably in your lifetime. I recommend it.

Personal helicopters
To put things into perspective, this is a Guy (boom boom to you too, dewd) who reckoned everyone would have their own private helicopter by c. 1980 - prescient, huh?

Still, without TSotS Vaneigem's brilliant Revolution of Everyday Life could never have the resonance it does, so credit where it's due - and GD did invent pyschogeography as a discipline...