The Revolution of Everyday Life

One of the most important exponents of Situationist ideas presents an impassioned critique of modern capitalism in this important cornerstone of modern radical thought. Originally published in early 1968, it both kindled and colored the May 1968 upheavals in France, which captured the attention of the world. Naming and defining the alienating features of everyday life in consumer society--survival rather than living in full, the call to sacrifice, the cultivation of false needs, the dictatorship of the commodity, subjection to social roles, and the replacement of God by the economy--the book argues that the countervailing impulses that exist within deep alienation--creativity, spontaneity, poetry--present an authentic alternative to nilhilistic consumerism. This carefully edited new translation marks the first North American publication of this important work and includes a new preface by the author.