BUREAU OF PUBLIC SECRETS

“Making petrified conditions dance by singing them their own tune.”

 

 

Situationist International Anthology

In 1957 a few European avant-garde groups came together to form the Situationist International. Picking up where the dadaists and surrealists had left off, the situationists challenged people’s passive conditioning with carefully calculated scandals and the playfully subversive tactic of détournement. Seeking a more fundamental social revolution than was dreamed of by most leftists, they developed an incisive critique of the global spectacle-commodity system and of its “Communist” pseudo-opposition, and their new methods of agitation helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France. Since then (although the SI itself was dissolved in 1972) situationist theories and tactics have continued to inspire radical currents all over the world.
      The SI Anthology is the most comprehensive and accurately translated collection of situationist writings in English. It presents a rich variety of articles, leaflets, graffiti, and internal documents, ranging from the situationists’ early experiments in “psychogeography” to their lucid analyses of the Watts riot, the Vietnam War, the Prague Spring, the Chinese “Cultural Revolution,” and other crises and upheavals of the sixties.
      The Bibliography has been updated to include comments on dozens of newer books by and about the situationists.

The Society of the Spectacle (Guy Debord)

Guy Debord was the most influential figure in the Situationist International. His book The Society of the Spectacle, originally published in Paris in 1967, has been translated into more than twenty other languages and is arguably the most important radical book of the twentieth century.
      Contrary to popular misconceptions, Debord’s book is neither an ivory tower “philosophical” discourse nor a mere expression of “protest.” It is a carefully considered effort to clarify the most fundamental tendencies and contradictions of the society in which we find ourselves — in order to facilitate its overthrow. This makes the book more of a challenge, but it is also why it remains so pertinent more than half a century after its original publication, while countless other social theories and intellectual fads have come and gone. It has, in fact, become more pertinent than ever, because the spectacle has become more all-pervading than ever — to the point that it is almost universally taken for granted. Most people today have scarcely any awareness of pre-spectacle history, let alone of anti-spectacle possibilities. As Debord noted in his follow-up work, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (1988), “spectacular domination has succeeded in raising an entire generation molded to its laws.”
      Ken Knabb’s new translation is the first edition in any language to include extensive annotations, clarifying the historical allusions and revealing the sources of Debord’s “détournements.”

Guy Debord’s Complete Cinematic Works

Between 1952 and 1978 Guy Debord created six truly unique films, each different from the other five and all quite different from any other film ever made. Following the still-unsolved assassination of the films’ producer in 1984, all the films were withdrawn from circulation for nearly twenty years.
      In 2001 Debord’s widow Alice began rereleasing the films and asked Ken Knabb to translate the scripts into English. His translations were published in 2003. For this new edition Ken has added a previously untranslated video that Debord made shortly before his death.
      Technically and aesthetically, Debord’s films are among the most brilliantly innovative works in the history of the cinema. But they are not so much "works of art" as carefully calculated subversive provocations. One is an adaptation of Debord’s own book, The Society of the Spectacle. Others evoke his adventures in the bohemian underworld of 1950s Paris, which he contrasts with the increasingly ignorant, ugly, and alienated world that has since been produced by modern capitalism. In each case Debord simultaneously attacks the film medium itself, challenging spectators to create their own adventures instead of passively consuming the pseudo-adventures that are presented to them.

Public Secrets: Collected Skirmishes of Ken Knabb

Ken Knabb is best known for his meticulous translations of numerous works by Guy Debord and the Situationist International. Public Secrets is a comprehensive collection of his own writings over a period of three decades (1970-1997).
      The first half of the book consists of two substantial new texts. “The Joy of Revolution” is a series of observations on the problems and possibilities of a global antihierarchical revolution. Beginning with a brief overview of the failures of Bolshevism and the inadequacies of reformism, it examines the pros and cons of a wide range of radical tactics, then concludes with some detailed speculations on what a liberated society might be like. “Confessions of a Mild-Mannered Enemy of the State” is largely concerned with Knabb’s situationist activities, but it also includes reminiscences of the sixties counterculture and accounts of his Zen practice and other later ventures.
      The second half of the book presents a variety of earlier pamphlets, posters, comics, and articles on Wilhelm Reich, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, radical Buddhists, Japanese anarchists, Chinese dissidents, the 1970 Polish revolt, the 1979 Iranian uprising, the 1991 Gulf war, etc.

The Joy of Revolution and Related Texts

The Joy of Revolution has been translated into seven other languages and is widely considered Ken Knabb’s most significant work. It would be difficult to name a single book that more clearly and concisely explores the problems and possibilities of a modern, situationist-type revolution.
      Following a brief overview of the absurdities of the present social system and the failures of past efforts to change it, The Joy of Revolution examines the pros and cons of a wide range of radical tactics, first in the context of “normal” or “ordinary” conditions, then in the very different context of radical situations — those rare breakthroughs where masses of people start to call everything into question and real change becomes possible. It then concludes with some speculations on how a postrevolutionary global network of diverse liberated communities might work, and where we might go from there.
      For this new edition, Ken has added some notes and updates to his original work and appended a number of his more recent texts — detourned comics; book reviews; a refutation of anarcho-primitivism; reports on two radical movements in France; a series of texts and talks on the Occupy movement (in which Ken was an enthusiastic participant); observations on the coronavirus shutdown; and analyses of the increasingly vicious and delirious Trump regime and the new forms of popular resistance it has inspired.

More Public Secrets

Ken Knabb’s writings since Public Secrets. In addition to those included in the new edition of The Joy of Revolution, they include “We Don’t Want Full Employment, We Want Full Lives!” (1998); “A Look at Some of the Reactions to Public Secrets” (2000); “Reflections on the Uprising in France: Documents and Graffiti” (2006); “Anti-Prison Resources” (2007); “Ten Years on the Web” (2008); “Travel Diaries: 1971-2018” (2021); “Inventory of the Ken Knabb Papers at Yale” (2022); “Exploring the Classics: Chronicle of a Book Group” (2025); “Selected Opinions about Ken Knabb” (pro and con, 1975 to present); and “Rapid Responses” (Ken’s brief replies to email queries, 1999 to present).

In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary (Ngo Van)

Although the Vietnam War is still well known, few people are aware of the decades of struggles against the French colonial regime that preceded it, many of which had no connection with the Stalinists (Ho Chi Minh’s Communist Party). The Stalinists were ultimately victorious, but only after they systematically destroyed all the other oppositional currents.
        Ngo Van’s In the Crossfire is the story of these other movements and revolts, caught in the crossfire between the French and the Stalinists, told by one of the few survivors. It is one of those rare books like Voline’s The Unknown Revolution or Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia that almost single-handedly unveil moments of hidden history — sublime moments when people break through the bounds of the “possible” and strive to create a life worthy of their deepest dreams and aspirations.

Investigations and Provocations

A variety of radical documents, old and new, by Karl Marx, Clarence Darrow, Randolph Bourne, Bertolt Brecht, Karl Korsch, Josef Weber, Asger Jorn, Paul Goodman, Gary Snyder, Jo Freeman, Simon Leys, Raoul Vaneigem, etc.

Gateway to the Vast Realms

A list of over 500 books that Knabb recommends — classic and modern literature, religion and philosophy, science and psychology, humor and comics, history and revolution — with brief comments on why they are worth reading and passages from some of the recommended works.

Kenneth Rexroth Archive

A huge archive of works by and about the great writer, social critic, and Renaissance man, who wryly described his main themes as “sex, mysticism, and revolution,” and who was the leading inspiration behind the San Francisco Renaissance of the fifties and sixties. Includes a complete out-of-print book (Communalism: From Its Origins to the Twentieth Century); a complete never-published guidebook (Camping in the Western Mountains); a complete never-published anthology (The Poetry of Pre-Literate Peoples); excerpts from his fascinating Autobiography and from Classics Revisited (itself a little classic); a generous selection of his poems and of his translations of poetry from seven other languages (Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian); more than  a hundred essays and reviews; his complete San Francisco journalism (more than 800 columns and articles); and links to dozens of articles about him.

Comics and Posters

Detourned comic strips in the subversive style invented and developed by the situationists.

Videos

Talks, discussions, and webinars about Guy Debord, the Situationist International, the Occupy movement, Kenneth Rexroth, Zen Buddhism, French and American songs, etc.

Other Languages

Belarusian · Croatian · Farsi · French · German · Greek · Hebrew · Indonesian · Italian · Japanese · Latvian · Portuguese · Russian · Spanish · Swedish · Turkish

Site Information

What’s New · Site Search · Site Index · Site Map · Mirror Site · Catalog · Errata

 

 

NO COPYRIGHT.
Unless otherwise indicated, any of the texts published by
the Bureau of Public Secrets or posted at this website
may be freely reproduced, translated, or adapted.

 

---

Bureau of Public Secrets, PO Box 1044, Berkeley CA 94701, USA
www.bopsecrets.org   knabb@bopsecrets.org