The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist International in a Postmodern Age [Paperback]

Sadie Plant (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415062225 | ISBN-13: 978-0415062220 | Publication Date: June 7, 1992 | Edition: 1

This book is the first major study of the Situationist International. Tracing the history, ideas and influences of this radical and inspiring movement from dada to postmodernism, it argues that situationist ideas of art, revolution, everyday life and the spectacle continue to inform a variety of the most urgent poltical events, cultural movements, and theoretical debates of our times.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`Plant's book is a timely and important interrogation of the relationshiop between situationism and postmodernism, ...' - Modern & Contemporary France

`An analysis of Situationism is long overdue, and Sadie Plant's rigorous account finally gives it credit for its enormous contribution to postwar theory and revolutionary politics.' - New Statesman and Society

`This is the first accessible study of the situationists, one of the 20th century's more arcane and avante-garde political groups.' - Sunday Times

About the Author

Sadie Plant is Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Birmingham University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (June 7, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415062225
• ISBN-13: 978-0415062220
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,215,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The SI as alternative to the abyss of po-mo, March 16, 2000

By 

Miriam M. Lain "Douglas Lain" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist International in a Postmodern Age (Paperback)

Plant's book, along with Greil Marcus' "Lipstick Traces," served as my introduction to the ideas of Guy Debord and the Situationist International, so I'm not likely to be objective about its importance.

Plant argues that Debord's radical critique of capitalist/industrial society as spectacular is a precursor to postmodernism, or at least that these two positions share similar territory. This book is worth your time if you are interested in anarchism or libertarian socialism...it is also a nice study of dissident art in the last century.

Guy Debord is the most important political thinker of the second half of the twentieth century. His updating of Marx is worth investigating, and Plant's book is a nice introduction to this material.