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October 1998
4 1/2 x 7, 192 pp.
(PAPER)
Trade

ISBN-10:
1-570-27078-3
ISBN-13:
978-1-570-27078-9

Out Of Print
Other Editions
Paper (2008)
Series
Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents
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From Semiotext(e):
Pure War
Paul Virilio and Sylvère Lotringer
Translated by Mark Polizzotti


"Pure war" is the name of the invisible war that technology is waging against humanity. In this dazzling dialogue with Sylvere Lotringer, Paul Virilio for the first time displayed the whole range of his reflections on the effect of speed on our civilization and every one of them has been dramatically confirmed over the years. For Virilio, the foremost philosopher of speed, the "technical surprise" of World War I was the discovery that the wartime economy could not be sustained unless it was continued in peacetime. As a consequence, the distinction between war and peace ceased to apply, inaugurating the military-industrial complex and the militarization of science itself.

Every new invention casts a long shadow that we are generally unwilling to acknowledge in the name of progress: the invention of automobiles inaugurated car-crashes; the invention of nuclear energy, Hiroshima and Tchernobyl. The technologies of instant communications have invented another kind of accident: the extermination of space and the derealization of time. Instant feedback is shrinking the planet to nothing, and "globalization" is its ultimate accident. First published in 1983, this book introduced Virilio's thinking to the United States. For successive generations of readers, it remains one of the most influential and far-reaching essays of our time.

About the Authors

Paul Virilio has published twenty-five books, including Pure War (his first in English) and The Accident of Art, both written with Sylvère Lotringer, as well as the new edition of The Aesthetics of Disappearance, all published by Semiotext(e).

Sylvère Lotringer, general editor of Semiotext(e), lives in New York and Baja, California. He is the author of Overexposed: Perverting Perversions (Semiotext(e), 2007).




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