Download or read book King Mob written by David Wise and published by Bread and Circuses Publishing. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly personal, deeply political, coldly analytical and achingly optimistic account of what some consider to be one of the most important English political groupings of the 20th Century and beyond. The psycho-mythological legacy left behind by King Mob, nowadays often tied up with its assumed influence on Malcolm McLaren/the Pistols and Punk Rock (and via it's wider Situationist context, Factory Records and the Hacienda) far outweighs the physical imprint they left behind in the form of six glued together copies of it's often wildly and deliberately provocative publication, and the iconic graffiti left up around West London and beyond.  From a radical working class perspective, Dave Wise (helped by brother Stuart and longtime collaborator Nick Brandt) gives a first hand account of the (loose) formation of King Mob after their core members were excluded from the Situationist International by the schism-happy Debord in 1967. (Not, unfortunately, as the story used to go, after Debord came to London looking for the crack squad of pro-situ streetfighters he'd heard about, and found Dave and Stuart W. sat in front of Match of the Day getting on the lager- it never happened). "A Critical History ." celebrates their attempt to move "from the Situationist salon to the street," whilst not shying away from identifying tactical, strategic and theoretical holes in the groups day to day actions, as seen by brothers Dave and Stuart. Plans to blow up waterfalls, getting arrested on demos dressed as pantomine horses (the back end got off in court, on the grounds he didn't know what the front end was doing seriously), sharing oversized baked bean costumes with ultra-Maoists on Vietnam marches.  Getting high and hungrily devouring Coleridge, De Quincey, Rimbaud, Marx, De Sade, Breton, Joyce and Hegel. Pissing over the lectern whilst declaring the death of art at the 1968 English Surrealist convention, being (falsely) put in the frame for the 1969 Newcastle School of Art firebombing; perhaps most infamously dressing up as Santa Claus in Selfridges toy dept, Xmas 1969, and watching the chaos of consumerism unfold before them as crying children had the King Mob freely-gifted toys wrenched from their arms by confused and desperate employees. There was never any danger of King Mob withering quietly on the vine of ritualised opposition, but the downturn of the early 1970's and the apparent end of any hope for imminent social revolution as the "forthcoming horror of a totalitarian free market society of pseudo-individualism" hoved into view, hit some of them harder than they could have imagined. As more financially independent King Mob individuals drifted off into the warm embrace of various strands of bourgeois counterculture, others faced up to the harsher realities of the "capsized utopia." Some didn't make it through, as an at times unintentionally moving epilogue here recalls. Dave Wise spent the next thirty five years combining casual work on the buildings with travel and immersive writing on everything from the Portugese Revolution to Punk, from deep-ecology to the Inner City Riots of 1984. As he continues with this "maimed praxis" into his seventies, "A Critical, Hidden History" is a living, breathing account of a brief moment in time, when the light got through the cracks in the wall, and a new world felt possible. As we career into the 21st century, with Capitalism apparently in semi-permanent crisis and new (often transient) zones of opposition appearing by the month, the relevance of the playful, life affirming, non-hierarchical, anti-capitalists King Mob seems as great today as it ever did."

Download or read book King Mob A Critcal Hidden History written by David Wise and published by Bread and Circuses Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I met a prostitute – Angela W – from the fishing port of Grimsby on the mouth of the Humber in the North of England. I instantly fell in love with her in an all consuming way. The pain inside my body, so massively accumulated with the death of hopes for the social revolution...was wrenched away from me as she slowly...shambled towards me.” So begins Dave Wise’s first hand account of King Mob, the late 60s London based political grouping formed after core members were excluded from the Situationist International. From a radical, working class perspective, Wise recounts their attempts to move “from the Situationist salon to the street”, whilst frankly outlining identifying tactical, strategic and theoretical holes in the groups’ day to day actions. Plans to blow up waterfalls, getting arrested on demos dressed as pantomine horses (the back end got off in court, on the grounds he didn’t know what the front end was doing...), sharing oversized baked bean costumes with ultra-Maoists on Vietnam marches. Getting high and hungrily devouring Coleridge, De Quincey, Rimbaud, Marx, De Sade, Breton, Joyce and Hegel. Urinating over the lectern whilst declaring the death of art at the 1968 English Surrealist convention, being (falsely) put in the frame for the 1969 Newcastle School of Art firebombing; perhaps most infamously dressing up as Santa Claus in Selfridges toy dept, Xmas ‘69, and watching the chaos of consumerism unfold before them as crying children had the King Mob freely-gifted toys wrenched from their arms by employees. As the downturn of the early 1970’s approached, and with it the apparent end of any hope for imminent social revolution, some of King Mob drifted off into various strands of bourgeois counterculture, whilst others faced up to the harsher realities of the “capsized utopia”. Some didn’t make it through, as an at times unintentionally moving epilogue here recalls. “A Critical Hidden History” is a living, breathing account of a brief moment in time, when the light got through the cracks in the wall, and a new world felt possible. As we career into the 21st century, the relevance of the playful, life affirming, non-hierarchical, anti-capitalists King Mob seems as great today as it ever did.

Download or read book The Mob and the City written by C. Alexander Hortis and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forget what you think you know about the Mafia. After reading this book, even life-long mob aficionados will have a new perspective on organized crime. Informative, authoritative, and eye-opening, this is the first full-length book devoted exclusively to uncovering the hidden history of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in New York City during the 1930s through 1950s. Based on exhaustive research of archives and secret files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, author and attorney C. Alexander Hortis draws on the deepest collection of primary sources, many newly discovered, of any history of the modern mob. Shattering myths, Hortis reveals how Cosa Nostra actually obtained power at the inception. The author goes beyond conventional who-shot-who mob stories, providing answers to fresh questions such as- * Why did the Sicilian gangs come out on top of the criminal underworld? * Can economics explain how the Mafia families operated? * What was the Mafia's real role in the drug trade? * Why was Cosa Nostra involved in gay bars in New York since the 1930s? Drawing on an unprecedented array of primary sources, The Mob and the Cityis the most thorough and authentic history of the Mafia's rise to power in the early-to-mid twentieth century.

Download or read book Up Against the Real written by Nadja Millner-Larsen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of 1960s activist art group Black Mask. With Up Against the Real, Nadja Millner-Larsen offers the first comprehensive study of the group Black Mask and its acrimonious relationship to the New York art world of the 1960s. Cited as pioneers of now-common protest aesthetics, the group’s members employed incendiary modes of direct action against racism, colonialism, and the museum system. They shut down the Museum of Modern Art, fired blanks during a poetry reading, stormed the Pentagon in an antiwar protest, sprayed cow’s blood at the secretary of state, and dumped garbage into the fountain at Lincoln Center. Black Mask published a Dadaist broadside until 1968, when it changed its name to Up Against the Wall Motherfucker (after line in a poem by Amiri Baraka) and came to classify itself as “a street gang with analysis.” American activist Abbie Hoffman described the group as “the middle-class nightmare . . . an anti-media phenomenon simply because their name could not be printed.” Up Against the Real examines how and why the group ultimately rejected art in favor of what its members deemed “real” political action. Exploring this notorious example of cultural activism that rose from the ruins of the avant-garde, Millner-Larsen makes a critical intervention in our understanding of political art.

Download or read book Unruly Equality written by Andrew Cornell and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2016-01-13 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this highly accessible social and intellectual history of American anarchism in the United States, Andrew Cornell reveals an amazing continuity and development across the twentieth century. Far from fading away, anarchists dealt with major events such as the rise of Communism, the New Deal, atomic warfare, the black freedom struggle, and a succession of artistic avant-gardes stretching from 1915 to 1975. This book traces U.S. anarchism as it evolved from the creed of poor immigrants militantly opposed to capitalism early in the twentieth century to one that today sees resurgent appeal among middle-class youth and foregrounds ecology, feminism, and opposition to cultural alienation"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Art Politics and the Pamphleteer written by Jane Tormey and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer brings together a collection of text-based and visual essays, commissioned artworks and graphics. This richly illustrated book responds to the concept, aesthetics and function of the political pamphlet. It is diverse in content, interpreting the 'pamphlet' in the broadest terms, and encompassing a number of case studies that offer historical or specific examples of contemporary pamphleteering practice that can be seen to perform 'a clear political implication' or protest. Besides exploring the radical history and diverse cultures of the pamphlet, it also celebrates the rich visual rhetoric, typography and contemporary relevance of the format for both artists and activists. Contributions include an historical overview and essays by: Andy Abbott, Angeliki Avgitidu, Aziz Choudry and Désirée Rochat, David Murrieta Flores, Michelle Kempson, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Rachel Schreiber, Jane Tormey, Gillian Whiteley; visual contributions by Gary Anderson and Steven Shakespeare, Ruth Beale, Ami Clarke, Common Culture, Jeremy Deller, Freee, Patrick Goddard, Gavin Grindon, Ferenc Grof, Marc Herbst, Joanne Lee, Josh MacPhee, Manual Labours, Mark McGowan, Minute Works, Chris Morton, radicalreThink, Hester Reeve, Oliver Ressler, Greg Sholette & Christopher Darling, Laura Wild, Andrew Wilson. As the book was conceived as predominantly visual from the outset, the book concept has been a collaboration with The Little Riot Press (Phil Eastwood and Chris Dunne). Overall, an aesthetic of protest and propaganda was considered integral to the design to reiterate the generally handmade, analogue techniques found in political pamphlets. The Little Riot Press have thus approached the illustration and overall visual cohesion from the perspective of the radical artist pamphleteer. www.thelittleriotpress.com

Download or read book The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination written by Lamar Waldron and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: November 22, 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the tragedy that has haunted America ever since. For the first time, this concise and compelling book pierces the veil of secrecy to fully document the small, tightly–held conspiracy that killed President John F. Kennedy. It explains why he was murdered, and how it was done in a way that forced many records to remain secret for almost fifty years. The Hidden History of JFK's Assassination draws on exclusive interviews with more than two dozen associates of John and Robert Kennedy, in addition to former FBI, Secret Service, military intelligence, and Congressional personnel, who provided critical first–hand information. The book also uses government files—including the detailed FBI confession of notorious Mafia godfather Carlos Marcello—to simply and clearly reveal exactly who killed JFK. Using information never published before, the book uses Marcello's own words to his closest associates to describe the plot. His confession is also backed up by a wealth of independent documentation. This book builds on the work of the last Congressional committee to investigate JFK's murder, which concluded that JFK ‘was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy," and that godfathers ["Santo] Trafficante [and Carlos] Marcello had the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy." However, it also draws on exclusive files and information not available to Congress, that have only emerged in recent years, to fully explain for the first time how Marcello and Trafficante committed—and got away with—the crime of the 20th century. Some of the book's revelations will be dramatized in the upcoming Warner Brothers film Legacy of Secrecy, produced by and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which also stars Robert De Niro as Carlos Marcello. The Hidden History of JFK's Assassination is the definitive account of the crime and the secrecy which has surrounded it.

Download or read book The Situationist International in Britain written by Sam Cooper and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells, for the first time, the story of the Situationist International’s influence and afterlives in Britain, where its radical ideas have been rapturously welcomed and fiercely resisted. The Situationist International presented itself as the culmination of the twentieth century avant-garde tradition — as the true successor of Dada and Surrealism. Its grand ambition was not unfounded. Though it dissolved in 1972, generations of artists and writers, theorists and provocateurs, punks and psychogeographers have continued its effort to confront and contest the ‘society of the spectacle.’ This book constructs a long cultural history, beginning in the interwar period with the arrival of Surrealism to Britain, moving through the countercultures of the 1950s and 1960s, and finally surveying the directions in which Situationist theory and practice are being taken today. It combines agile historicism with close readings of a vast range of archival and newly excavated materials, including newspaper reports, underground pamphlets, Psychogeographical films, and experimental novels. It brings to light an overlooked but ferociously productive period of British avant-garde practice, and demonstrates how this subterranean activity helps us to understand postwar culture, late modernism, and the complex internationalization of the avant-garde. As popular and academic interest in the Situationists grows, this book offers an important contribution to the international history of the avant-garde and Surrealism. It will prove a valuable resource for researchers and students of English and Comparative Literature, Modernism and the Avant-Gardes, Twentieth Century and Contemporary History, Cultural Studies, Art History, and Political Aesthetics.

Download or read book No Future written by Matthew Worley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-21 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative history of British youth culture during the 1970s and 1980s, charting the full spectrum of punk's cultural development.

Download or read book Guy Debord the Situationist International and the Revolutionary Spirit written by James Trier and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guy Debord, the Situationist International, and the Revolutionary Spirit presents a history of the two avant-garde groups that French filmmaker and subversive strategist Guy Debord founded and led: the Lettrist International (1952-1957) and the Situationist International (1957-1972).

Download or read book Ripped torn and cut written by Subcultures Network and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-02 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ripped, torn and cut offers a collection of original essays exploring the motivations behind – and the politics within – the multitude of fanzines that emerged in the wake of British punk from 1976. Sniffin’ Glue (1976–77), Mark Perry’s iconic punk fanzine, was but the first of many, paving the way for hundreds of home-made magazines to be cut and pasted in bedrooms across the UK. From these, glimpses into provincial cultures, teenage style wars and formative political ideas may be gleaned. An alternative history, away from the often-condescending glare of London’s media and music industry, can be formulated, drawn from such titles as Ripped & Torn, Brass Lip, City Fun, Vague, Kill Your Pet Puppy, Toxic Grafity, Hungry Beat and Hard as Nails. The first book of its kind, this collection reveals the contested nature of punk’s cultural politics by turning the pages of a vibrant underground press.

Download or read book Like A Summer With A Thousand Julys written by Dave Wise and published by Bread and Circuses Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 581 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now into their late 60's, and still working the buildings with the same London gang they’ve been with since the late 70's, key King Mob faces Dave and Stuart Wise have never stopped writing and agitating, and this, a companion volume to last years' warmly received 'King Mob: A Critical Hidden History', pulls together polemics, reflections, and righteous rants from the last 30 years. Opening up with 'Like A Summer With A 1000 July's' extensive, sideways look at the wave of urban insurrection that swept inner city UK in 1981; debunking punk’s ‘situationist myth’ in 'The End Of Music', and a brief, but definitive look at the glorious ‘King Mob/Father Xmas at Selfridges’ prank of 1968. 'Nietzsche: Revolutionary' looks at the much revered/contested philosopher as "a reluctant communist", "proto ecologist" and "brother Hegelian. Separate chapters look back with affection and honesty at old friends, comrades and English Situationist founders Ralph Rumney and Alexander Trocchi respectively. Along the way, shards of surrealism cut through: the assault on art "in the great mod battle of Keswick”, when “a travelling theatre was again torched,” or the Dadaist guerrilla flavoured August ‘81 bank holiday attack when "the model railway station at Brighton was molotoved by white youths." And whilst an unwavering ideological perspective firmly rejects the stasis of the post war 'revolutionary left', just as it recoils in disgust at encroaching Neo Liberal barbarism, Dave Wise never shies away from reflecting on the personal, via the prism of the political : "Guy and Michele broke up around 1970.....everybody's relationship did, including my own; a break up...I never got over, and I've thought about my beloved Anne Ryder every day of my life since. These break-ups weren't about sexual difficulties or inadequacies nor about not being able to relate or even love, but finally about history and how the most profound revolt ever experienced failed so utterly, and the essential by-product of such failure was a psychosomatic pain so desperate it seemed in need of therapeutic treatment; a treatment simple warm cuddling and quiet affection couldn't match. We stormed and smashed open the gates of paradise to let in every exploited nutter who cared to join in... yet on the brink of utopia we were refused entry and where, just where, could you go from such a point of no return?"

Download or read book Design History Beyond the Canon written by Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-02-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Design History Beyond the Canon subverts hierarchies of taste which have dominated traditional narratives of design history. The book explores a diverse selection of objects, spaces and media, ranging from high design to mass-produced and mass-marketed objects, as well as counter-cultural and sub-cultural material. The authors' research highlights the often marginalised role of gender and racial identity in the production and consumption of design, the politics which underpins design practice and the role of designed objects as pathways of nostalgia and cultural memory. While focused primarily on North American examples from the early 20th century onwards, this collection also features essays examining European and Soviet design history, as well as the influence of Asia and Africa on Western design practice. The book is organised in three thematic sections: Consumers, Intermediaries and Designers. The first section analyses a range of designed objects and spaces through the experiences and perspectives of users. The second section considers intermediaries from both technology and cultural industries, as well as the hidden labour within the design process itself. The final section focuses on designers from multiple design disciplines including high fashion, industrial design, interior design, graphic design and design history pedagogy. The essays in all three sections utilise different research methods and a wide range of theoretical approaches, including feminist theory, critical race theory, spatial theory, material culture studies, science and technology studies and art history. Design History Beyond the Canon brings together the most recent research which stretches beyond the traditional canon and looks to interdisciplinary methodologies to better understand the practice and consumption of design.

Download or read book Working for the clampdown written by Colin Coulter and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-04 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together a range of writers from different academic disciplines and different locations to provide an engaging and accessible critical exploration of one of the most revered and reviled bands in the history of popular music. The essays collated here locate The Clash in their own explosive cultural moment of punk's year zero and examine how the group speaks from beyond the grave to the uncanny parallels of other moments of social and political crisis. In addition, the collection considers the impact of the band in a range of different geopolitical contexts, with various contributors exploring what the band meant in settings as diverse as Italy, England, Northern Ireland, Australia and the United States. The diverse essays gathered in Working for the clampdown cast a critical light on both the cultural legacy and contemporary resonance of one of the most influential bands ever to have graced a stage.

Download or read book Brothers written by David Talbot and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 840 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert F. Kennedy was the first conspiracy theorist about his brother's murder. In this astonishingly compelling and convincing new account of the Kennedy years, acclaimed journalist David Talbot tells in a riveting, superbly researched narrative why, even on 22 November 1963, RFK had reason to believe that dark forces were at work in Dallas and reveals, for the first time, that he planned to open an investigation into the assassination had he become president in 1968. BROTHERS also portrays a JFK administration more besieged by internal enemies than has previously been realised, from within the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI and the mafia. This frightening portrait of sinister elements within and without the government serves as the background for the emotionally charged journey of Robert Kennedy. Reading it, you can absolutely believe any number of people would have been happy for both brothers to meet a sticky end. The tragedy, not just for America but for the world, is that since their murders no one has had the nerve to stand against the dark forces they challenged in quite the same way.

Download or read book Ecology or Catastrophe written by Janet Biehl and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Murray Bookchin was not only one of the most significant and influential environmental philosophers of the twentieth century--he was also one of the most prescient. From industrial agriculture to nuclear radiation, Bookchin has been at the forefront of every major ecological issue since the very beginning, often proposing a solution before most people even recognized there was a problem. Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin is the first biography of this groundbreaking environmental and political thinker. Author Janet Biehl worked as his collaborator and copyeditor for 19 years, editing his every word. Thanks to her extensive personal history with Bookchin as well as her access to his papers and archival research, Ecology or Catastrophe offers unique insight into his personal and professional life. Founder of the social ecology movement, Bookchin first started raising environmental issues in 1952. He foresaw global warming in the 1960s and even then argued that we should look into renewable energy sources as an alternative to fossil fuels. Wary of pesticides and other chemicals used in industrial agriculture, he was also an early advocate of small-scale organic farming, which has developed into the present locavore movement and the revival of organic markets. Even Occupy can trace the origins of its leaderless structure and general assemblies to the nonhierarchical organizational form Bookchin developed as a libertarian socialist. Bookchin believed that social and ecological issues were deeply intertwined. Convinced that capitalism pushes businesses to maximize profits and ignore humanist concerns, he argued that eco-crises could be resolved by a new social arrangement. His solution was Communalism, a new form of libertarian socialism that he developed. An optimist and utopian, Bookchin believed in the potentiality for human beings to use reason to solve all social and ecological problems.

Download or read book Mob Culture written by Lee Grieveson and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mob Culture offers a long-awaited, fresh look at the American gangster film, exposing its hidden histories from the Black Hand gangs of the early twentieth century to The Sopranos. Departing from traditional approaches that have typically focused on the "nature" of the gangster, the editors have collected essays that engage the larger question of how the meaning of criminality has changed over time. Grouped into three thematic sections, the essays examine gangster films through the lens of social, gender, and racial/ethnic issues.