What Is Situationism?: A Reader

Rating:
Summary: Good if you wanted to read incomprehensible post-situs
Review: If you were expecting to understand what the situationists were about, expect to still not understand. This book is almost worthless if not understanding how horrible post-situationists are. Very few of these are written for an understanding of what "situationism", if such a word exists, is. Instead, it offers several loosely related essays written by people who were influenced by Situationists. This would be the last book I would suggest for anyone to read to understand the Situationists.

I would definitely suggest Guy Debord and the Situationists International or the Situationist Anthology. Hell, I would even suggest fight club if you wanted a better understanding of what "situationism" is, because it'll probably do a better job than this.

Rating:
Summary: Theses on the society of the spectacle
Review: The wooden, characteristic, language of the "left" is dominant here and it makes this book rather unfriendly to the average reader. Then again, the average reader will not read this book so i guess it's all good in the end.
However, for those that want to (re)discover situationism as a movemement there are better books out there.
This is a collection of essays from various figures explaining or criticising -or both- the birth and decline of situationism in the 60s. Many of the contributors assume that the reader already has some knowledge or familiarity with the topic or is even well acquainted with it so they take it from there making certain parts of the book hard to comprehend.
But if your patience prevails you will be awarded:
-You will be informed about the main ideas and concepts behind the "S.I's" (Situationists International). Mainly a movement which aimed to be a creative attack against the society of the spectacle and which succeeded for a certain period while finding its own demise mainly due to its eliticism.
-A couple of specific essays, namely, those that deal with music and the arts stand out as extraordinary and very important critiques on music and the arts in general. The part in particular about punk and the Sex Pistols happens to be the sharpest and possibly most original (and dead-on the spot)criticism i've read anywhere and i have read literally 1000s of articles and tens of books on music because of my profession.
- Other gems (for the uninitiated) include "psychogeography" which involves remapping a city according to the effect a city's buildings, streets, or quarters have on someone.
All in all not always an easy reading (ok, i'm understating here) but a highly interesting one nevertheless.
But if you want to know situationism then do not start from here. As i said above there are much more comprehensive sources and books on the subject.