Originally published just months before the May 1968 upheavals in France, Raoul Vaneigem's text offered a lyrical and aphoristic critique of the 'society of spectacle' from the point of view of individual experience. Vaneigem defines the alienating features of everyday life in consumer society and explores the countervailing impulses that persist within that alienation. The present English translation was first published by the Rebel Press in 1983. This new edition has been reviewed and corrected by the translator and contains a new preface by Raoul Vaneigem.