Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century - Softcover

'Lipstick Traces time travels on the wings of philosophy, history, conjecture and copious research to visit parallel movements of cultural rebellion... they range dizzyingly from punk to Dadaism, from French situationists to Anabaptism... destined, in other words, to achieve cult status.' The New York Times 'The world's greatest living rock critic.' Charles Shaar Murray, Independent

A cult classic in a new edition. This book is about a single, serpentine fact: late in 1976 a record called 'Anarchy in the UK' was issued in London, and this event launched a transformation of pop music all over the world. The song distilled, in crudely poetic form, a critique of modern society once set out by a small group of Paris intellectuals. In Lipstick Traces, Greil Marcus's classic book on punk, Dadaism, the situationists, medieval heretics and the Knights of the Round Table (amongst others), the greatest cultural critic of our times unravels the secret history of the twentieth century.