Critique of Everyday Life, Vol. 2: Foundations for a Sociology of the Everyday

by Henri Lefebvre, John Moore (Translator), Gregory Elliott (Translator)

Henri Lefebvre's magnum a monumental exploration of contemporary society. Henri Lefebvre's three-volume Critique of Everyday Life is perhaps the richest, most prescient work by one of the twentieth century's greatest philosophers. Written at the birth of post-war consumerism, the Critique was a philosophical inspiration for the 1968 student revolution in France and is considered to be the founding text of all that we know as cultural studies, as well as a major influence on the fields of contemporary philosophy, geography, sociology, architecture, political theory and urbanism. A work of enormous range and subtlety, Lefebvre takes as his starting-point and guide the 'trivial' details of quotidian an experience colonized by the commodity, shadowed by inauthenticity, yet one which remains the only source of resistance and change. This is an enduringly radical text, untimely today only in its intransigence and optimism.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Sociology, Politics, Theory, Urbanism, Urban Studies

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Henri Lefebvre was a French sociologist, Marxist intellectual, and philosopher, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of social space, and for his work on dialectics, alienation, and criticism of Stalinism, existentialism, and structuralism.

In his prolific career, Lefebvre wrote more than sixty books and three hundred articles. He founded or took part in the founding of several intellectual and academic journals such as Philosophies, La Revue Marxiste, Arguments, Socialisme et Barbarie, Espaces et Sociétés.

Lefebvre died in 1991. In his obituary, Radical Philosophy magazine honored his long and complex career and influence:
the most prolific of French Marxist intellectuals, died during the night of 28–29 June 1991, less than a fortnight after his ninetieth birthday. During his long career, his work has gone in and out of fashion several times, and has influenced the development not only of philosophy but also of sociology, geography, political science and literary criticism.

Reviews

[Dan]

The parts of this I had a chance to go through thoroughly were fantastic. This is everything you ever hoped a Nietzschean Marxian theory would be (and if you never had hopes for a great synthesis of Marx and Nietzsche, you might like this anyway). The final chapter, "The theory of moments," is itself worth the price of the book. I haven't had the chance to go through everything in the book yet, but it's as rich in provocative analytic terms as, say, 1000 plateaus, but more accessible and much more geared toward application. Ethics, research methods, and social theory blended into one very satisfying package.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Profound moments between excruciating ones, when reading on was pure torture, due to incredible vagueness and mouth-parching dryness.