The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International - Hardcover

"Wark is a fine aphorist ... Playful, angry, depressed, celebratory, this is a book for anyone not convinced that there is no alternative to the way we live now" - Christopher Bray, Observer "Wark's readable explanation of the movement's ideas[...] is the best I have read. " - Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times "A sexy book for a sexy movement - This is a beautifully written, exciting and broad study, one that may perhaps become a definitive introduction to the SI for many. " - Christopher Collier, Mute Magazine "Fascinating." - Jonathan Derbyshire, Guardian "This is no ordinary history. Instead, "it's a question of retrieving a past specific to the demands of the present." The Beach Beneath the Street rereads that past in a way that prefers not to smooth out its messier edges, refuses to reify (to pick up the jargon) what made it radical, what still makes it relevant. " - David Winters, Bookslut Praise for The Hacker Manifesto "This is a perceptive, provocative study, packed to the seams with acute analysis." Terry Eagleton, Nation "Wark's book challenges the new regime of property relations with all the epigrammatic vitality, conceptual innovation, and revolutionary enthusiasm of the great manifestos." Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire "Infuriating and inspiring in turn, A Hacker Manifesto will spawn a thousand theses, and just maybe spawn change." Mike Holderness, New Scientist "A Hacker Manifesto will yield some provocative ideas and real challenges to a world in which everything is commodified." - Eric J. Iannelli, Times Literary Supplement

Over fifty years after the Situationist International appeared, they continue to influence activists, artists and theorists. From the Invisible Committee's bestselling The Coming Insurrection to Iain Sinclair's psychogeographic explorations, their work is still found to be rich with possibilities, yet its breadth and diversity is still unexplored. In the first account since Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces (1989), McKenzie Wark traces the Situationist International's beginnings in 1950s bohemian Paris up to the explosive days of May 1968. This account puts the legendary figure of Guy Debord back into the context of the other fascinating figures who made up the movement, including Constant, Asger Jorn, Michele Bernstein and Jacqueline De Jong. It treats them as an international movement of conflicting passions rather than as a Paris coterie. Accessible to those who have only just discovered the Situationists and filled with new insights, Wark reconnects their work to new practices in communication, built form, and everyday life.