CATALOG
Situationist
International Anthology
Revised and Expanded Edition
Edited and translated
from the French by Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006
ISBN 978-0-939682-04-1
532 pages. $20.00
In 1957 a few European avant-garde groups came together to form the
Situationist International. Picking up where the dadaists and surrealists had
left off, the situationists challenged people’s passive conditioning with
carefully calculated scandals and the playful tactic of détournement.
Seeking a more extreme social revolution than was dreamed of by most leftists,
they developed an incisive critique of the global
spectacle-commodity system and of its “Communist” pseudo-opposition, and their
new methods of agitation helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France. Since
then — although the SI itself was dissolved in 1972 — situationist theories and
tactics have continued to inspire radical currents all over the world.
The Situationist International Anthology,
generally recognized as the most comprehensive and accurately translated
collection of situationist writings in English, presents a rich variety of
articles, leaflets, graffiti and internal documents, ranging from early
experiments in “psychogeography” to lucid analyses of the Watts riot, the
Vietnam War, the Prague Spring, the Chinese Cultural Revolution and other crises
and upheavals of the sixties.
For this new edition the translations have
all been fine-tuned and over 100 pages of new material have been added.
[Table of Contents and online texts]
Public Secrets
Collected Skirmishes of Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 1997
ISBN 0-939682-03-6
408 pages. $15.00
Ken Knabb has translated numerous works by Guy Debord and the Situationist
International. Public Secrets is a comprehensive collection of his own writings
over a period of three decades.
The first half of the book consists
of two new texts. “The Joy of Revolution” is a series of observations on the
problems and possibilities of a global antihierarchical revolution. Beginning with a brief
overview of the failure of Bolshevism and the inadequacy of reformism, it examines the
pros and cons of a wide range of radical tactics, then concludes with some speculations on
what a liberated society might be like. “Confessions of a Mild-Mannered Enemy of the
State” is largely concerned with Knabb’s situationist activities, but it also
includes reminiscences of the sixties counterculture and accounts of his Zen practice and
other later ventures.
The second half of the book
contains virtually all of Knabb’s previous publications. Beginning with his 1970
disruption of a Gary Snyder poetry reading, it includes critiques of the New Left and the
counterculture; accounts of situationist groups, tactics and scandals; translations of
several French texts; an appreciation of the great writer and social critic, Kenneth
Rexroth; pamphlets, posters, comics and articles on Wilhelm Reich, radical Buddhists,
Japanese anarchists, Chinese dissidents, the 1970 Polish revolt, the 1979 Iranian
uprising; and the widely reproduced Gulf war tract, “The War and the Spectacle.”
The aim throughout is to bring the
real choices into the open and to incite people to make their own radical experiments.
[Table of Contents and online texts]
Guy Debord:
Complete Cinematic Works
Translated and edited by Ken Knabb
AK Press, 2003
268 pages, 62 illustrations
Hardcover (ISBN 1-902593-73-1), $29.00
Paperback (ISBN 1-902593-83-9), $19.00
Guy Debord, founder of the Situationist International and
fomenter of the May 1968 revolt in France, was also the creator of six tantalizingly inaccessible films.
Following the still-unsolved assassination of the films’ producer in 1984, all
of them were withdrawn from circulation for nearly twenty years. This new edition of Debord’s film scripts accompanies the long-awaited
rerelease of these astonishing works, the most important radical films ever
made.
One of the films is an
adaptation of Debord’s own book, The
Society of the Spectacle. Others evoke his adventures in the bohemian underworld of
1950s Paris, which he contrasts with the increasingly ignorant, ugly and
alienated world that has since been produced by modern capitalism. In each case
Debord simultaneously attacks the film medium itself, challenging spectators to
create their own adventures instead of passively consuming the pseudo-adventures
that are presented to them.
Ken Knabb’s meticulous new
translation of the scripts — which he was asked to make by Debord’s widow and
which will also be used in subtitling the films themselves — is supplemented
with numerous illustrations and documents and elucidated by extensive
annotations. With chronology, filmography, bibliography, and index.
Wholesale orders of this book should be directed to the publisher: AK Press. Individual copies may be ordered either from AK Press or from the Bureau of Public Secrets.
[Table of Contents, online excerpts, and general information about Debord’s films]
Guy Debord:
The Society of the Spectacle
Newly translated by Ken Knabb
Rebel Press (London), 2004
119 pages. $15.00
The Society of the Spectacle, originally published in 1967, is
the most important radical book of the twentieth century.
Contrary to popular misconceptions,
Debord’s book is neither an ivory tower
“philosophical” discourse nor a kneejerk militant “protest,” but a
ruthlessly lucid examination of the most fundamental tendencies and contradictions of the
society we live in. This means that it needs to be reread many times, but it
also means that it remains as pertinent as ever while countless radical and intellectual
fads have come and gone. As Debord noted in his later Comments on the Society of the
Spectacle (1988), in the intervening decades the spectacle has become more
pervasive than ever, to the point of repressing virtually any awareness of
pre-spectacle history or anti-spectacle possibilities: “Spectacular domination has
succeeded in raising an entire generation molded to its laws.”
Although there have been several
previous English translations of The Society of the Spectacle, the
translator believes that this new edition conveys Debord’s actual meaning more accurately, as well as more
clearly and idiomatically, than any of the other versions.
Wholesale orders of this book should be directed to AK Distribution (USA) or AK Distribution (UK). Individual copies may be ordered from AK Distribution, from the Bureau of Public Secrets, or from www.abooks.org (UK).
(Note: In the first printing of this edition the publisher erroneously referred to this as “a new authorized translation.” The translation was in fact done independently and was not authorized. This error has been corrected in the second printing.)
[Table of Contents and online text]
The Relevance of Rexroth
By Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 1990
ISBN 0-939682-02-8
88 pages. $5.00
A critical appreciation of the great poet, essayist and social critic Kenneth Rexroth, who wryly described his main themes as “sex, mysticism and revolution,” and who was the leading inspiration behind the San Francisco Renaissance of the fifties and sixties.
Note: The complete text of this small book is also included in Public Secrets.
[Table of Contents and online text]
HOW TO ORDER
Individual copies of these books may be ordered direct from the publisher:
Bureau of Public Secrets
P.O. Box 1044
Berkeley, CA 94701
USA
If you order any two of these books, there is a $5 discount. If you order three, there is a $10 discount. If you order four, there is a $15 discount. If you order five there is a $20 discount. Add $5 total postage and handling charge for United States orders, regardless of the number of books. Please email the BPS for information on postal rates for foreign orders. Please make checks to “Ken Knabb.”
These books are also available in bookstores and from the following distributors:
United States:
AK Distribution
674-A 23rd St.
Oakland, CA 94612
510-208-1700
www.akpress.org [or click one of the red AK links above to order a specific book]
Small Press Distribution
1341 7th St.
Berkeley, CA 94710
510-524-1668
www.spdbooks.orgLittle Black Cart [Public Secrets and SI Anthology only]
http://www.littleblackcart.comLeft Bank Distribution [retail only]
92 Pike St.
Seattle, WA 98101
206-322-2868
www.leftbankbooks.com
Europe:
AK Distribution
P.O. Box 12766
Edinburgh EH8 9YE
UK
0131-555-5165
www.akuk.com
Australia:
Barricade Books
P.O. Box 199
East Brunswick VIC 3056
Australia
http://barricade.org.au/
Bureau Prehistory: 1970-1972
Edited by Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 1973
90 pages (8½″ x
11″). $10.00
Collected leaflets, comics and scandals of three early San Francisco Bay Area situationist groups: the Council for the Eruption of the Marvelous, 1044, and Contradiction.
NOTE: There are no discounts on this photocopy dossier. It is available only directly from Ken Knabb, not from stores or distributors.
[Table of Contents and online texts]