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Blending books on radical history with tracts on contemporary independent culture and activism, our "Situations and Actions" section hopes to instruct and inspire readers toward new methods of culture hacking and creative resistance. All books are available in the City Lights Bookstore (Map & Directions). You can also order these books directly from our web site, simply click on the "add to cart" button next to the book of your choice. All orders will be sent by DHL Ground service. For expedited shipping or international orders, please see our Ordering Information . |
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| Life Out of Context: by Walter Mosley Life Out of Context begins as a powerful, brooding and humorously honest examination of Mosley’s own sense of cultural dislocation as an African American writer. But due to a series of serendipitous events — the screening of a documentary about Africa, an encounter with Harry Belafonte and Hugh Masakela — Mosley, rather like the protagonist in one of his mystery novels, has a series of epiphanies on the role of a black intellectual in America. 1560258462 Nation Books $12.95 |
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Panegyric: Volumes 1 & 2 by Guy Debord Translated by James Brook & John McHale What more could you expect from Guy Debord– the artist who eschewed art, theorist who called for an end to theory, public figure who remained hidden from the press for most of his life– than a memoir in the form of a puzzle. Comprised of quotes and shards of material taken from other sources, Panegyric is less a narration than a challenge. Brook and McHale's masterful translations of both volumes add a new subtlety to the text. Hardcover 1859846653 Verso $25.00 |
| Guy Debord and the Situationist International edited by Tom McDonough This volume is a revised and expanded version of a special issue of the journal October (Winter 1997) that was devoted to the work of the Situationist International (SI). The first section of the issue contained previously unpublished critical texts, and the second section contained translations of primary texts that had previously been unavailable in English. 0-262-63300-0 MIT Press/ October Books $24.95 Temporarily out of stock |
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Guy Debord by Andy Merrifield Though well-known for his founding of the avant-garde Situationist International movement and his prominent political and cultural activism, Guy Debord was nonetheless a surprisingly elusive and enigmatic figure, spending his last years in an isolated farmhouse in Champot, France. Andy Merrifield's Guy Debord pushes back the farmhouse shutters and opens a window onto Debord's life, theory, and art. 1861892616 Reaktion Books $16.95 |
| Complete Cinematic Works: Scripts, Stills, Documents by Guy Debord While Debord's written work is some of the most notorious in the world of political and cultural radicality, deemed "the cornerstone cliche of postmodernism," his films have until now remained tantalizingly inaccessible. The scripts are illustrated with 62 stills, and Debord's own annotations help elucidate the subtleties of these astonishing works, unparalleled in cinematic history. 1902593839 AK Press $19.00 |
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Revolutionary Romanticism: A Drunken Boat Anthology Edited by Max Blechman In this rich collection of writings by artists, scholars, and revolutionaries, the transgressions of the past are recaptured and transvalued for the benefit of the struggles of today and tomorrow. 0-87286-351-4 City Lights Books $15.95 |
| The Consul byRalph Rumney Translated by Malcolm Imrie Ralph Rumney has been in constant flight from the wreckage of postwar Europe. Crossing paths with every avant-garde of the past fifty years, he was one of the founding members of the Situationist International. Rumney’s traveling companions—Guy Debord, Yves Klein, Marcel Duchamp, Georges Bataille, William Burroughs, Félix Guattari, E.P. Thompson—are recalled in the oral history of The Consul with sharp intelligence and dry wit. 0-87286-398-0 City Lights $12.95 |
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The Tribe by Jean-Michel Mension Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith Between 1952 and 1954, Jean-Michel Mension haunted Saint-Germain-des-Prés as a member of the legendary Letterist International, direct progenitor of the Situationist International. In a series of conversations, Mension recounts this very particular vie de bohème whiled away with Guy Debord and a rogue’s gallery of hard drinkers and thinkers. The rich iconography includes many of Ed van der Elsken’s celebrated photographs of "the tribe" and a trove of Letterist leaflets and posters. A rare, vivid tour of a moment and milieu barely noticed at the time by the tourists flocking to Saint-Germain for a glimpse of Sartre & Co. 0-87286-392-1 City Lights Books $14.95 |
| Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook Edited by Crimethinc Three years in the making, this 624-page manual complements romance and idealism with practical information and instruction. Over thirty collectives collaborated in testing, composing, and editing the book’s 62 sections, which range from Affinity Groups, Coalition Building, and Mental Health to Sabotage, Squatting, and Wheatpasting. These are illustrated with extensive technical diagrams and first-hand accounts, and prefaced with a thorough discussion of the diverse roles direct action can play in social transformation. If you’re looking for a tactical handbook for revolutionary action, look no further. 0970910142 Crimethinc $15.00 |
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Situationist International Anthology Ken Knabb, ed. A legendary compendium of assorted Situationist writings tracing the movement's origins and anarchic development. 0-939682-00-1 Bureau of Public Secrets $15.00 Temporarily out of stock |
| Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles by Laura Pulido Laura Pulido traces the roots of third world radicalism in Southern California during the 1960s and 1970s in this accessible, wonderfully illustrated comparative study. Focusing on the Black Panther Party, El Centro de Accion Social y Autonomo (CASA), and East Wind, a Japanese American collective, she explores how these African American, Chicana/o, and Japanese American groups sought to realize their ideas about race and class, gender relations, and multiracial alliances. 0520245202 University of California Press $21.95 |
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Street-Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties by Tariq Ali In this new edition of his memoirs, Tariq Ali revisits his formative years as a young radical. It is a story that takes us from Paris and Prague to Hanoi and Bolivia, meeting such figures as Malcolm X, Bertrand Russell, Marlon Brando, Henry Kissinger, and Mick Jagger along the way. In vivid detail, Ali captures the mood and energy of those years as he tracks the growing significance of the nascent protest movement. 1844670295 Verso $17.00 |
| The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith A volatile text that has decisively transformed debates on modernity, capitalism, and everyday life in the twentieth century. Set the stage for much clamor, much sound, much fury. A new, masterful translation of this essential Situationist text. 1566566592 Zone Books $18.00 |
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Comments on the Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord Translated by Malcolm Imrie Guy elaborates his guileless text and further explores our spectacular circumstances. 1-85984-169-4 Verso $16.00 |
| Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World Edited by Paul Buhle The stories of the hard-rock miners' shooting wars, young Elizabeth Gurly Flynn (the "Rebel Girl" of contemporary sheet music), the first sit-down strikes and Free Speech fights, Emma Goldman and the struggle for birth control access, the Pageant for Paterson orchestrated in Madison Square Garden, bohemian radicals John Reed and Louise Bryant, field-hand revolts and lumber workers' strikes, wartime witch hunts, government prosecutions and mob lynching, Mexican-American uprisings in Baja, and Mexican peasant revolts led by Wobblies, hilarious and sentimental songs created and later revived—all are here, and much, much more. 1844675254 Verso $25.00 |
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Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World Edited by David Solnit Globalize Liberation weaves together the experiences and insights of community organizers, direct action movements, and global justice struggles from North America, Europe, and Latin America. Thirty-three essays provide food for thought, examples of effective action, and practical tools for everyone to use. This book, the product of uprisings, hard-lived victories, and visions for the future, was created to articulate, popularize, and deepen the rebellious spirit of the new radicalism. 0-87286-420-0 City Lights Books $17.95 |
| Chomsky on Anarchism by Noam Chomsky This collection of Chomsky's essays and inter-views includes numerous pieces that have never been published before, as well as rare material that first saw the light of day in hard-to-find pamphlets and anarchist periodicals. Taken together, they paint a fresh picture of Chomsky, showing his lifelong involvement with the anarchist community, his constant commitment to nonhierarchical models of political organization and his hopes for a future world without rulers. 1904859208 AK Press $16.95 |
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The Political Edge Edited by Chris Carlsson Cultural and political trends erupt in San Francisco, a city that thrives on dissent and new ideas. Revealing emergent political energies and a new dynamics that will reshape urban politics nationwide, 25 activists address such concerns as the failure of political representation and the electoral process, housing scams and displacement, urban ecology and transportation, the fate of the arts, insurgent subcultures, and utopian proposals for transformational politics. 1-93140-405-4 City Lights Books $17.95 |
| Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Eight edited by Jon Wiener Opening at the end of 1969, the trial brought Yippies, antiwar activists, and Black Panthers to face conspiracy charges arising from the massive protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The defendants openly lampooned the proceedings, with Abbie Hoffman blowing kisses to the jury and the defense bringing a Viet Cong flag into the courtroom. The judge ordered Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers bound and gagged for insisting on representing himself. And an array of celebrity witnesses appeared, including Timothy Leary, Norman Mailer, Arlo Guthrie, and Allen Ginsberg, who provoked the prosecution by chanting "Om" on the witness stand. ISBN: 1565848330 New Press $16.95 |
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Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit Acclaimed author Rebecca Solnit draws on her life as a writer and activist, on the events of our moment, on our deepest past, to argue for hope—hope even in the dark. Solnit reminds us of how changed the world has been by the activism of the past five decades. Offering a dazzling account of some of the least expected of those changes, she proposes a vision of cause-and-effect relations that provides new grounds for political engagement in the present. 1560258284 Nation Books $13.95 |
| Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America by Ward Churchill Pacifism, the ideology of nonviolent political resistance, has been the norm among mainstream North American progressive groups for decades. But to what end? Ward Churchill challenges the pacifist movement's heralded victories-Gandhi in India, 1960s antiwar activists, even Martin Luther King's civil rights movement-suggesting that their success was in spite of, rather than because of, their nonviolent tactics. Pacifism as Pathology was written as a response not only to Churchill's frustration with his own activist experience, but also to a debate raging in the activist and academic communities. He argues that pacifism is in many ways counterrevolutionary; that it defends the status quo, and doesn't lead to social change. In these times of upheaval and global protest, this is a vital and extremely relevant book. ISBN: 1904859186 AK Press $12.95 |
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