Recommend a book
Dec 11 2005 18:13
Can anyone recommend an overview of Situationism.
Dec 11 2005 18:34
#2
Chris Gray's 'leaving the 20th century' is great. Not an introduction i suppose but an anthology of situ stuff.
Dec 11 2005 19:05
#3
Dec 11 2005 20:07
#4
Does it make sense to be looking for an overview of class struggle (a book) something on what it is and the events/theory around it? Can anyone recommend something?
Dec 12 2005 09:43
#5
Hi
you might like to have a look at sadie plant's "the most radical gesture" routledge, 1992. (though i suspect many pro-situs hate it)
ak press and dark star have done a nice volume: beneath the paving stones - situationistsand the beach, may 1968, which has a nice seelction of texts.
Dec 12 2005 16:27
#6
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a good read, written by a working class man in the 1910's (or thereabouts). Although the author was a state-socialists, most of what he says is also relevant to anarchism.
Dec 12 2005 16:35
#7
Cuttlefish wrote:
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a good read, written by a working class man in the 1910's (or thereabouts). Although the author was a state-socialists, most of what he says is also relevant to anarchism.
Welcome to the boards! I've heard that books good but I've not read it.
Dec 12 2005 17:09
#8
yeah the spectacular times is a good'un. also check out David Pinder's Visions of the City which is pretty academic but i couldn't not mention it cos he's my supervisor!! It's more about their architectural/urban critiques though
Dec 12 2005 17:56
#9
Sadie Plant's book is crap. So is Len Bracken's. Most material on the SI is crap, either pro-situ ass kissing (Bracken) or pomo-ista culture criticism (Plant). There is no good general book on the SI, though John Gray For Communism put together a nice booklet with Gilles Dauve's critique, Aufheben's critique and some other stuff. It's pretty good, along with Dauve's "Back to the SI". The best monograph of Debord so far, which is as close as we get to a good overview of the SI, is Anselm Jappe's book on Debord. Andrew Merrifield just did a monograph of Debord i have not read, but he does some good stuff on class struggle and geography.
the best post-Situ Situationist piece I have seen is "200 Pharaohs, 5 Billion Slaves", by a guy named Ken Peacock which is hard to find but a great little book.
Best stuff on class struggle: well, what do you mean? On specific class struggles? On the concept of class struggle? That's a wide open field.
chris
Dec 12 2005 20:26
#10
jimmer wrote:
Welcome to the boards! I've heard that books good but I've not read it.
Thanks for the welcome. I wasn't particularly impressed by the ending, but otherwise it was marvellous.
I would also recommend Iain M. Banks as an author. His writings include stories about the Culture - an anarchist civilisation of total abundance.
Dec 18 2005 21:22
#11
You might like to look at Simon Ford's book 'The Situationist International;A users guide'.
redtwister wrote
Quote:
Sadie Plant's book is crap. So is Len Bracken's. Most material on the SI is crap, either pro-situ ass kissing (Bracken) or pomo-ista culture criticism (Plant).
I think this is unfair on Sadie Plant-the first half is a good account of Situationist ideas.Braken's book although full of interesting bits and pieces about other authors who Debord was interested in does seem to me to be sloppy(sometimes he attributes quotes to Vaneigem with no references) and its very uncritical.I agree that Jappe's book is probably the best around at present but it's certainly not an overview of the Situationists-as it only centres in on Debord's writings.
Not a book, but have you had a look at our Situ page?
http://libcom.org/thought/ideas/situationists/