A sick planet

Guy Debord is one of the 20th Century’s most prophetic critics. His bestselling work, `Society of the Spectacle’, decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism, and everyday life. Since his suicide in 1994, the accuracy and pertinence of his writings on those troubled times is ever more apparent. `A Sick Planet’ brings together three of his key essays. `The Rise and Fall of the “Spectacular” Commodity-Economy’ is an analysis of the Watts riots in Los Angeles in the summer of 1965, when much of the city’s black population fought thousands of police and National Guard for several days. `The Explosion Point of Ideology in China’ examines and celebrates the decomposition of bureaucratic power and its ideology in China. `A Sick Planet’ presents an extremely prescient polemic on global environmental degradation.