CATALOG

Guy Debord:
The Society of the Spectacle
Newly translated and annotated by Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 2014
ISBN 978-0-939682-06-5
150 pages. $15.00

The Society of the Spectacle, originally published in Paris in 1967, has been translated into more than twenty other languages and is arguably the most important radical book of the twentieth century. This is the first edition in any language to include extensive annotations, clarifying the historical allusions and revealing the sources of Debord’s “détournements.”
      Contrary to popular misconceptions, Debord’s book is neither an ivory tower “philosophical” discourse nor a mere expression of “protest.” It is a carefully considered effort to clarify the most fundamental tendencies and contradictions of the society in which we find ourselves. This makes it more of a challenge, but it is also why it remains so pertinent nearly half a century after its original publication while countless other social theories and intellectual fads have come and gone.
      It has, in fact, become even more pertinent than ever, because the spectacle has become more all-pervading than ever — to the point that it is almost universally taken for granted. Most people today have scarcely any awareness of pre-spectacle history, let alone of anti-spectacle possibilities. As Debord noted in his follow-up work, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (1988), “spectacular domination has succeeded in raising an entire generation molded to its laws.”    

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[Table of Contents and online text]

Situationist International Anthology
Revised and Expanded Edition
Edited and translated by Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006
ISBN 978-0-93968-204-1
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.

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[Table of Contents and online texts]

Public Secrets
Collected Skirmishes of Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 1997
ISBN 978-0-93968-203-4
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.

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[Table of Contents and online texts]

Guy Debord:
Complete Cinematic Works
Translated and edited by Ken Knabb
AK Press, 2003
ISBN 978-1-90259-383-8
268 pages, 62 illustrations. $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.

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[Table of Contents, online excerpts, and general information about Debord’s films]

Ngo Van:
In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary
Edited by Ken Knabb and Hélène Fleury
Translated by Hélène Fleury, Hilary Horrocks, Ken Knabb and Naomi Sager
AK Press, 2010
ISBN 978-1-84935-013-6
296 pages, 70 illustrations. $19.95

Although the Vietnam War is still well known, few people are aware of the decades of struggles against the French colonial regime that preceded it, many of which had no connection with the Stalinists (Ho Chi Minh’s Communist Party). The Stalinists were ultimately victorious, but only after they systematically destroyed all the other oppositional currents. This book is the story of these other movements and revolts, caught in the crossfire between the French and the Stalinists, told by one of the few survivors.
     Ngo Van’s In the Crossfire is one of those rare books like Voline’s The Unknown Revolution or Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia that almost single-handedly unveil moments of hidden history — sublime moments when people break through the bounds of the “possible” and strive to create a life worthy of their deepest dreams and aspirations.

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.

Order this book directly from AK Press. This title is also available as an ebook. You can buy it directly from your favorite ebook provider.

[Table of Contents and online text]

The Relevance of Rexroth
By Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 1990
ISBN 978-0-93968-202-7
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

In the United States, 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 or more there is a $20 discount. Add $5 total postage and handling charge for all orders, regardless of the number of books. Additional discounts are available for larger paid-in-advance orders (e.g. a box of 24 Public Secrets or a box of 18 SI Anthology). Please make checks to “Ken Knabb.”

(Sorry, but due to skyrocketing international postal rates, I can no longer fill foreign orders. For orders outside the USA, please check with the distributors listed below.)

These books are also available in bookstores and from the following distributors:

United States:

AK Distribution
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Chico, CA 95973
510-208-1700
www.akpress.org

Small Press Distribution
1341 7th St.
Berkeley, CA 94710
510-524-1668
www.spdbooks.org

Little Black Cart [Public Secrets and SI Anthology and The Society of the Spectacle only]
www.littleblackcart.com

Left Bank Books [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

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