Escape from the 19th Century and Other Essays [Paperback]

Peter Lamborn Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1998

Did the nineteenth century ever come to an end? Was the twentieth century just a re-run? If to know “History” as tragedy is to escape its repetition as farce, then perhaps we need to look more deeply at this Past that won’t stop haunting us. Two illuminated madmen—Charles Fourier and Friedrich Nietzsche—and two too-sane geniuses—J.-P. Proudhon and Karl Marx—are enlisted in the break-out plan. The shape of this plan is then suggested in a final essay showing how old “rights and customs” of paleolithic reciprocity and eqalitarian spirituality have made innumerable re-entries into History.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Peter Lamborn Wilson is co-author of Green Hermeticism: Alchemy and Ecology (Lindisfarne Books, 2007); and author of ESCAPE FOR THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND OTHER ESSAYS: FOURIER, MARX PROUDHOM AND NIETZSCHE (Autonomedia, 1998), plus numerous other books and essays. He is a longtime member of the Autonomedia Collective and lives in the Hudson Valley.

Product Details

• Paperback: 206 pages
• Publisher: Autonomedia (December 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570270732
• ISBN-13: 978-1570270734
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,834,050 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something of a ragbag--but what rags!, October 11, 2004

By 

Michael Steinberg (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Escape from the 19th Century and Other Essays (Paperback)

These four essays are loosely linked, at best, and stylistically they range widely, too. There's an affectionate evocation/discussion of that great madman, Charles Fourier; an insightful and novel analysis of Marx's quarrel with Proudhon that is probably as close to an academic essay as PLW is likely to publish; a wide-ranging piece on the traces of anti-authoritarian and anti-hierarchical sentiment in various cultures; and a straighforward and perhaps slightly over-extended chronicle of a bizarre piece of Rumanian history, a story which reads like fiction. They all share a concern with alternatives to the dreadful repetitions of the teethgrinding insanity of capitalism, but with Wilson that more or less goes without saying.

So what? The diversity of topics is refreshing, and they all benefit from Wilson's generosity, his keen intelligence and genuine depth, and his serious though totally un-academic scholarship. And the two central essays, "Marx and Proudhon Escape the Nineteenth Century" and "The Shamanic Trace," raise key issues about the chances that we may yet find a way out of the self-devouring cycles of the world laid down in the European nineteenth century, that age red in tooth and claw. Very highly recommended.