The Society of the Spectacle

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...

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 societe du spectacle. A Swerve Edition, distributed for Zone Books.

居伊·德波于1931年12月28日出生在巴黎。1950年德波开始了与字母主义国际(LI)的交往。1957年字母主义国际与名为包豪斯印象运动国际的艺术家们一起建立了情境主义国际(SI)，德波自任该组织的领袖。

1967年德波出版了他的重要著作《景观社会》，他还于1973年制作了《景观社会》的电影版本(德波称自己是导演)。

他阐发了马克思关于商品拜物教的概念，将其应用在当代大众传媒身上。而关于资本 主义社会中生活已经演变成一种景观的分析，可以看作是对马克思早期异化理论的修正。《景观社会》对1968年的学生运动产生了巨大影响。

1994年居伊·德波在Champot, Upper Loire自杀身亡，此时他刚度过自己63岁生日几周时间。