First published in 1967, Guy Debord's stinging revolutionary critique of contemporary society, The Society of the Spectacle has since acquired a cult status. The Das Kapital of the 20th century. An essential text, and the main theoretical work of the Situationists. Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960's up to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism, and everyday life.
Guy Debord (1931-1994) was a Marxist theorist, writer, poet, filmmaker, hypergraphist, cultural revolutionary and a founding member of the Lettrist International and Situationist International - groups that fused avant-garde art and politics as an anti-capitalist weapon. Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative as Debord's Society of the Spectacle, which decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism and contemporary life.