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Recommendations based on The Society of the Spectacleby Guy Debord
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Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1
by Karl Marx
Analysis of capitalism, exploring its economic and social systems.
Capital , one of Marx's major and most influential works, was the product of thirty years close study of the capitalist mode of production in England, the most advanced industrial society of his day. ... (Goodreads)
Simulacra and Simulation
by Jean Baudrillard
Analysis of the effects of technology on our lives, exploring the concept of hyperreality.
The publication of Simulacra et Simulation in 1981 marked Jean Baudrillard's first important step toward theorizing the postmodern. Moving away from the Marxist/Freudian approaches that had concerned ... (Goodreads)
Mythologies
by Roland Barthes
A collection of essays that deconstructs the myths of modern society, revealing their hidden meanings and cultural significance.
"No denunciation without its proper instrument of close analysis," Roland Barthes wrote in his preface to Mythologies . There is no more proper instrument of analysis of our contemporary myths than ... (Goodreads)
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
by Walter Benjamin
Collection of philosophical and literary essays on a range of topics.
Essays and reflections from one of the twentieth century’s most original cultural critics, with an introduction by Hannah Arendt . Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media
by Walter Benjamin
Reflection on the impact of technology on art, culture and society.
Benjamin’s famous 'Work of Art' essay sets out his boldest thoughts–on media and on culture in general--in their most realized form, while retaining an edge that gets under the skin of everyone who ... (Goodreads)
The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction
by Michel Foucault
Examination of the power dynamics and social constructions of sexual behavior.
Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex, and of the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the ... (Goodreads)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
by Friedrich Nietzsche
A philosophical treatise exploring morality, religion, and the meaning of life.
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
by Michel Foucault
Examines the emergence of the modern prison system and its effects on society.
Librarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found, here,. Barely two hundred and fifty years ago a man condemned of attempting to assassinate the King of France was drawn and quartered ... (Goodreads)
Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
by Michel Foucault
Examination of the changing attitudes towards mental illness over time and the implications of social control.
Librarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found, here,. Michel Foucault examines the archeology of madness in the West from 1500 to 1800 – from the late Middle Ages, when insanity ... (Goodreads)
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
by Roland Barthes
An exploration of the nature of photography and its power to evoke emotion.
A graceful, contemplative volume, Camera Lucida was first published in 1979. Commenting on artists such as Avedon, Clifford, Mapplethorpe, and Nadar, Roland Barthes presents photography as being ... (Goodreads)
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
by Ludwig Wittgenstein
A philosophical treatise on language, logic, and the limits of human understanding.
Perhaps the most important work of philosophy written in the twentieth century, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was the only philosophical work that Ludwig Wittgenstein published during his life. ... (Goodreads)
The Communist Manifesto
by Karl Marx
A treatise on the fundamental principles of communism, and its role in society.
A rousing call to arms whose influence is still felt today Originally published on the eve of the 1848 European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the ... (Goodreads)
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
by David Graeber
A history of money and debt, exploring the roots of our current financial system.
Before there was money, there was debt Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul ... (Goodreads)
Ways of Seeing
by John Berger
A critical analysis of visual culture and how it shapes our perception of the world. It challenges traditional ways of seeing and encourages a new perspective.
John Berger’s Classic Text on Art John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC ... (Goodreads)
Beyond Good and Evil
by Friedrich Nietzsche
A philosophical exploration of morality and truth, challenging conventional morality and religious beliefs.
Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil is translated from the German by R.J. Hollingdale with an introduction by Michael Tanner in Penguin Classics. Beyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche's ... (Goodreads)
Civilization and Its Discontents
by Sigmund Freud
Exploration of the psychological underpinnings of human civilization and its discontents.
It stands as a brilliant summary of the views on culture from a psychoanalytic perspective that he had been developing since the turn of the century. It is both witness and tribute to the late theory ... (Goodreads)
The Republic
by Plato
A philosophical discourse on justice, examining morality, politics, and virtue.
Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, this classic text is an enquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. ... (Goodreads)
On Photography
by Susan Sontag
Examination of the implications of photography and its effects on society.
First published in 1973, this is a study of the force of photographic images which are continually inserted between experience and reality. Sontag develops further the concept of 'transparency'. When ... (Goodreads)
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
by Naomi Klein
Examination of the exploitation of economic crises and shock tactics by governments and corporations.
In her ground-breaking reporting from Iraq, Naomi Klein exposed how the trauma of invasion was being exploited to remake the country in the interest of foreign corporations. She called it "disaster ... (Goodreads)
The Wretched of the Earth
by Frantz Fanon
A political analysis of colonialism and its effects on the global underclass.
A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and ... (Goodreads)
Philosophical Investigations
by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein's exploration of language and meaning, challenging traditional philosophical concepts and proposing new ways of understanding language games.
Philosophical Investigations, ( German : Philosophische Untersuchungen ) is a work by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein . The book was published posthumously in 1953. Wittgenstein discusses ... (Wikipedia)
On the Genealogy of Morals
by Friedrich Nietzsche
Exploration of morality, power, and the origin of human values.
On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about the history of ethics and about interpretation. Nietzsche rewrites the former as a history of cruelty, exposing the central values of the ... (Goodreads)
Black Skin, White Masks
by Frantz Fanon
Examining the psychological and social effects of colonialism on people of color.
A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world. Hailed for ... (Goodreads)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
by Paulo Freire
Analysis of the educational system, advocating a pedagogy of liberation.
First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished ... (Goodreads)
Phenomenology of Spirit
by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
An exploration of the relationship between mind and world, and the nature of knowledge.
Perhaps one of the most revolutionary works of philosophy ever presented, The Phenomenology of Spirit is Hegel's 1807 work that is in numerous ways extraordinary. It begins with a Preface, created ... (Goodreads)
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas S. Kuhn
An analysis of how scientific progress is made, and the role of paradigms and paradigmatic shifts.
A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, ... (Goodreads)
Orientalism
by Edward W. Said
Exploration of the Middle East through the West's prejudiced lens.
More than three decades after its first publication, Edward Said's groundbreaking critique of the West's historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East has become a modern classic. In ... (Goodreads)
Fear and Trembling
by Søren Kierkegaard
Philosophical essay exploring the importance of faith, and the human struggle for faith.
Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, theologian, and religious author interested in human psychology. He is regarded as a leading pioneer of existentialism and one of the greatest philosophers ... (Goodreads)
The Prince
by Niccolò Machiavelli
A timeless political treatise on the art of acquiring and maintaining power.
Machiavelli needs to be looked at as he really was. Hence: Can Machiavelli, who makes the following observations, be Machiavellian as we understand the disparaging term? 1. So it is that to know the ... (Goodreads)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
by David Hume
Analysis of the nature of human understanding, challenging existing philosophical and religious beliefs.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume , published in English in 1748. , It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of ... (Wikipedia)
