Guy Ernest Debord

Guy Ernest Debord (1931 - 1994) was a Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, and political activist. Prior to committing suicide he enjoyed an unusual and influential life, publishing The Society of the Spectacle in 1967. The book has been translated into English numerous times. The text offers no biographical data about the author, though some latter versions have supplementary biographical material, not included in the original. Debord was born in Paris and raised by his grandmother. After a brief stint of studying law he left the University of Paris and, in 1952, became active in the Lettrist International, a collective of radical artists and theorists often compared to America's Beat Generation. In the early 1960s, Debord was highly influential in the Situationist International group—itself briefly mentioned in Thesis 191. The Situationist International movement pursued several defined but complex goals, among them the construction of situations, or moments of life deliberately...