Customer Reviews

Terror from the Air (Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents)

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Peter Sloterdijk's "Terror From the Air" is a marvelous genealogy of a specific type of terrorism that involves an assault upon the enemy's very living conditions. Sloterdijk insists that the twentieth century began in 1915 at Ypres with the German attack upon French-Canadian troops using chlorine gas. This was the first time, he says, that an enemy's atmosphere came under assault rather than a particular army or fortification. Twentieth century terrorism, from the gassing of the Jews to the Tokyo subway attacks using sarin nerve gas by the AUM Shunrikyo cult, unfolds from out of this one moment, pregnant with devastation.

The book is apparently a slice cut from Sloterdijk's larger epic three volume work entitled "Spheres," in which he examines the implications of the disintegration of the various womb-worlds that have hitherto enclosed Western civilization. "Terror From the Air" is impressive because of its very lucidity, clarity and its lack of the usual technical verbosity that tends to plague critical theory texts.

It is apparent from this book that Sloterdijk can analyze culture along with the best of them, and he clearly deserves a wider audience. One hopes that more of his work will be translated, especially "Spheres." Sloterdijk belongs on the same shelf beside Baudrillard, Zizek and Virilio.

I proofread this book for Semiotexte, and I must say that it impressed me greatly. Sloterdijk manages to pack a lot of insight into his paragraphs, for the book is short and gets directly to the point.

If you like good Critical Theory books, then you should try this one.

SEE ALSO MY YOUTUBE VIDEO "JOHN DAVID EBERT ON PETER SLOTERDIJK"

--John David Ebert, author of "The New Media Invasion" and "Dead Celebrities, Living Icons."

Utterly disappointing: poorly translated, the english text reads like a translation, with rather confusing grammatical structures; chock-full of completely idiosyncratic and unhelpful definitions (Sloterdijk at one point defines terrorism as using a part to attack the whole and elsewhere as simply an attack against the enemy's environment or later as an attack in which the victim is forced to become an unwilling accomplice in his own annihilation! Really?); elision, through ignorance or otherwise, of evidence that would contradict his theories, especially regarding the history of Western warfare and the interrelationship between technology, morality, strategy and tactics. (Sloterdijk seems to imply a straight line causality whereas the relationship is clearly multidirectional.)

Sloterdijk is so focused on showing that terrorism (and thus for him total war) is unique to post-WWI 20th Century, that he misses out on, for example, the Napoleonic focus on the complete destruction of enemy forces, historical efforts to "poison" the environment (smoke, poisoning wells, scorched earth tactics), or even "terrorist-like" (for Sloterdijk anyway) attacks on the environment such as Sherman's March to the Sea during the USA Civil War. These are not minor problems for minor details. On the contrary, it shows that his major points are not well supported or are simply assumed. As a result, his conclusions are useless.

I will not comment on the final chapters and their discussion of surrealism as I feel that I do not have the appropriate background. Perhaps specialists will find his analysis interesting, perhaps not. But if the first half of the book is any indication, it is beyond worthless.

Fairly retro positivist account of terrorism. I recommend you read Jacques Ranciere's Dissensus instead.