Society of the Spectacle

by Guy Debord

Overview

For the first time, Guy Debord's pivotal work Society of the Spectacle appears in a definitive and authoritative English translation. Originally published in France in 1967, Society of the Spectacle offered a set of radically new propositions about the nature of contemporary capitalism and modern culture. At the same time it was one of the most influential theoretical works for a wide range of political and revolutionary practice in the 1960s. Today, Debord's work continues to be in the forefront of debates about the fate of consumer society and the operation of modern social power. In a sweeping revision of Marxist categories, the notion of the spectacle takes the problem of the commodity from the sphere of economics to a point at which the commodity as an image dominates not only economic exchange but the primary communicative and symbolic activity of all modern societies.

Guy Debord was one of the most important participants in the activities associated with the Situationist International in the 1960s. Also an artist and filmmaker, he is the author of Memoires and Commentaires sur la société du spectacle. A Swerve Edition, distributed for Zone Books.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780934868075
Publisher:	Black & Red
Publication date:	01/01/2002
Pages:	132
Product dimensions:	5.24(w) x 8.62(h) x 0.31(d)

About the Author

Guy Debord was the founder of the Situationist International (1957), the editor of its journal Internationale Situationniste (1958–1969), the author of several books, and the creator of seven films, including one based on his book The Society of the Spectacle.

Ken Knabb has translated numerous works by Guy Debord and the Situationist International, including Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle (2014; reissued by PM Press in 2024) and Debord’s Complete Cinematic Works (2003; to be reissued by PM Press in 2025). Knabb’s own writings, published in Public Secrets: Collected Skirmishes of Ken Knabb (1997) and posted online at his “Bureau of Public Secrets” website, have been translated into more than fifteen languages. He is currently presenting a series of Zoom webinars on The Society of the Spectacle and the Situationist International Anthology.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Third French Edition
I. Separation Perfected
II. The Commodity as Spectacle
III. Unity and Division Within Appearances
IV. The Proletariat as Subject and Representation
V. Time and History
VI. Spectacular Time
VII. Environmental Planning
VIII. Negation and Consumption in the Cultural Sphere
IX. Ideology in Material Form

What People are Saying About This

Endorsement

In all that has happened in the last twenty years, the most important change lies in the very continuity of the spectacle. Quite simply, the spectacle's domination has succeeded in raising a whole generation moulded to its laws. The extraordinary new conditions in which this entire generation has lived constitute a comprehensive summary of all that, henceforth, the spectacle will forbid; and also all that it will permit.

—Guy Debord, 1988

From the Publisher

In all that has happened in the last twenty years, the most important change lies in the very continuity of the spectacle. Quite simply, the spectacle's domination has succeeded in raising a whole generation moulded to its laws. The extraordinary new conditions in which this entire generation has lived constitute a comprehensive summary of all that, henceforth, the spectacle will forbid; and also all that it will permit.

—Guy Debord, 1988

Guy Debord

In all that has happened in the last twenty years, the most important change lies in the very continuity of the spectacle. Quite simply, the spectacle's domination has succeeded in raising a whole generation moulded to its laws. The extraordinary new conditions in which this entire generation has lived constitute a comprehensive summary of all that, henceforth, the spectacle will forbid; and also all that it will permit.

Editorial Reviews

I read The Society of the Spectacle again and I thought, ‘This is a fucking amazing book!’ I had forgotten how terrific it was, and it was actually quite different to how I remembered it. I insist that the key chapter is not the first one, on the spectacle itself, but the second to last—the chapter on détournement. To me, that concept is the great gift of the Situationists. They realized that one can exploit this critically—one can copy and correct in the direction of hope.”
—McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto in Los Angeles Review of Books

“We are not just inspired by what happened in the Arab Spring recently, we are students of the Situationist movement. Those are the people who gave birth to what many people think was the first global revolution back in 1968 when some uprisings in Paris suddenly inspired uprisings all over the world. All of a sudden universities and cities were exploding. This was done by a small group of people, the Situationists, who were like the philosophical backbone of the movement. One of the key guys was Guy Debord, who wrote The Society of the Spectacle. The idea is that if you have a very powerful meme—a very powerful idea—and the moment is ripe, then that is enough to ignite a revolution.”
—Adbusters (explaining the origins of the “Occupy” movement in 2011)

“In Society of the Spectacle, Debord sets out his best-known statement of how the categories of capitalism colonize everyday life to such an extent that we can barely imagine an existence beyond them.”
—Sydney Review of Books

“Never before has Debord's work seemed quite as relevant as it does now, in the permanent present that he so accurately foretold? Open his book, read it, be amazed, pour yourself a glass of supermarket wine—as he would wish—and then forget all about it, which is what the Spectacle wants.”
—Will Self, professor of Modern Thought at Brunel UniversityLondon

From the Publisher