The FE Bookservice may be reached at the same address as the Fifth Estate Newspaper, P.O. Box 02548, Detroit MI 48202 USA, telephone (313) 831-6800. Visitors are welcome, but our hours vary so please call before dropping in.
HOW TO ORDER BY MAIL:
1) List the title of the book, quantity wanted, and the price of each;
2) add 10% for mailing costs—not less than $.69 U.S. or $.96 foreign (minimum charge for 4th class book rate postage);
3) total;
4) write check or money order to: The Fifth Estate;
5) mail to The Fifth Estate, P.O. Box 02548, Detroit MI 48202 USA.
The Abolition of Work and Other Essays by Bob Black
With Black turned loose on a typewriter, no one is safe. Maybe that’s why he once described himself as a “loose cannon.” Witty, incisive, rancorous and totally devastating to his targets, he rarely has a good word for anyone (including this newspaper) but he does cut through the bullshit of anarchism with great eloquence and demands anarchy.
His lead essay (previously printed as a separate pamphlet), cuts to the quick those leftists, libertarians and anarchists who would retain work in their utopia. The refusal of these essentially conservative ideologues to consider the abolition of work ignores the State’s central role as the enforcer and organizer of the culture of work; the two exist because of each other, but it is work—”forced labor”—that Black postulates is the “major coercive institution” in human affairs.
Alternately funny, informative and challenging to the comfortable niches of anarchism—we highly recommend it. 34 other rants, articles, reviews, word games (all of which Black says are “for keeps”) make up the rest of the volume, most of which are sure to offend someone.
Loompanics 160 pp. $5.95
THE REFUSAL OF WORK Essays collected by Echanges et Mouvement
During the 1970s, articles by John and Paula Zerzan appeared in the Fifth Estate on the decomposition of daily life, the revolt against work and the police role of unions. Several authors respond about the importance of sabotage, absenteeism and other daily acts of revolt.
Echanges 64 pp. $1.40
THE REVOLUTION OF EVERYDAY LIFE by Raoul Vaneigem
The author was one of the founders of the Situationist International and this book was published in 1967, the same year as Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle. The two works were meant to complement each other. “Written in the street cafes of Paris between 1963-65, The Revolution of Everyday Life seemed to reflect exactly the mood of the revolutionaries of May ’68.” From the jacket.
Note: These editions are “hurts,” ones with slightly marred covers, but otherwise the same as the others we have offered at a higher price.
Rebel/Left Bank 216 pp. $5.00
SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE by Guy Debord
This major Situationist work traces the process in modern societies whereby all that was once lived directly has now moved into a representation,
Black & Red 221 Theses $2.00
LIVING MY LIFE: An Autobiography by Emma Goldman
In this first single-volume, unabridged autobiography, Goldman follows her life from her birth in 1869 in Lithuania through her personal triumphs and failures, her political radicalism and deportation, her love affairs- and personal remembrances. Johann Most, Alexander Berkman, “Big Bill” Haywood, Max Eastman, Jack London, John Reed, Lenin, Havelock Ellis and scores of others appear in this stirring account of the world’s most famous anarchist.
Peregrine 993 pp. paper (half price) $6.
(Note: due to its size orders for this book must include a minimum of $1.20 postage plus additional if other titles are ordered.)
KILL FOR PEACE—AGAIN Tuli Kupferberg
The title for this collection of original comix and detournements is taken from a song the author sang while he was with the Fugs, an early, experimental, satirical rock group. An updated version of the lyrics are included. Each send-up of war, government, the press and business is ready for xeroxing.
Self-pub, Unpaginated $1.00
NEW RECORDS
GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS 45 RPM 7″
Produced originally for the May 1986 Chicago Haymarket commemoration, all proceeds go to support anti-authoritarian projects (except, weirdly, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital). Songs are “World Civil War” and “Police Beat,” both good driving rock and roll (see review this issue).
Universal Satirical Association $1.00
The BLANKS: 33 RPM 7″
This two sided hit from one of Detroit’s most (politically) active bands includes ‘Where There’s Smoke,’ their rocker about the world’s largest incinerator (see review). The price includes another favorite, ‘Say Can You See’ but also information updating the continuing struggle against that Detroit trash plant. $2.50
* * *
BOLO’ BOLO by PM.
Bolo’ Bolo ranges somewhere between a satirical sci-fi novel and a (non-violent) battle plan for the “substruction of the capitalist and/or socialist Planetary Work Machine.” Bolos are tribal sized units which group people around specific interests/ideologies/ideas/tastes or what ever sphere of commonality they choose. P.M. devises a time table and even a language necessary for the transition to a world of Bolos, and even if one refuses to take it all completely seriously, there is a wealth of insight and humor to make the reading worthwhile.
Semiotext(e) 198 pp. $4.95
Social Anarchism: A Journal of Practice and Theory No. 11
Special Issue: Symposium On Social Change. A lead essay by Frank Lindenfeld on “Routes to Social Change” makes anarchism almost indistinguishable from liberalism and, in turn, is roundly criticized by John Clark, Michael Bacon, Spider Rainbow and others. Also contains coverage of the Haymarket Centennial, poetry and reviews.
Social Anarchism 80 pp. $3.00
SEMI PERMEABLE MEMBRANES: TWENTY SONGS OF THE REVOLUTION by Julian Beck
A selection of the 150 songs written by the late Julian Beck, “whose banner,” writes his collaborator Judith Malina elsewhere, “was the conquest of death by the awakening of the revolutionary spirit of the people through the struggle of the artist.” Protest, anger, resistance: “no one dies everyone is killed,” he writes. And “every time you pay a little tax/ the grass gets sick/ and some girls get crippled/ and die like workers in gas…every time you vote/ you vote for your jailers/ and bread blackens/ and the black kids get the prongs…” His whole motivation is one of jailbreak: “the people are leaving ghettos without permission/ the peasants are learning how to count/ anarchism is opening the gates.” Yet there is more than simplistic revolutionary poetics, there is a deep communication of the spirit, a planetary vision taking in ambivalence, taking in the human heart: “the world is beautiful and everything is perfect but beauty and perfection are not enough/ being free is only a partial state of being/ freedom is only the beginning.” As the intro says, “Always a voyageur, denouncing and announcing, bouncing between reality and utopia.” We felt gratitude for this book. Now who will print the entire cycle of songs?
Bliss Press 44 pp. $3.00
NOTE: The current issue of Exquisite Corpse (English Dept, Louisiana State U, Baton Rouge LA 70803, $1.50 single issue, $15 sub) is a tribute to Julian Beck, containing photos and essays and poetry by Judith Malina, Harold Norse, Amiri Baraka, Jerome Rothenberg, the inimitable Carl Solomon, and others.
MEAT IS MURDER by M. Spiegel
An examination of various aspects of our carnivorous society: the staggering contradictions apparent in economically starved Central American countries caught up in the monopoly of meat production for export to the insatiable U.S., the noxious and unhealthy results of eating “factory” meat and drinking “factory” milk, and the positive and healthy alternatives in vegetarianism.
Self-published 22 pp. $1.25
FEMINISM AND ANIMAL RIGHTS: Essays & Excerpts ed. by M. Spiegel
A compilation of essays by various women focusing on the connection between torture, manipulation, and objectification of animals and women in modern society. From one of the essays: “Nowhere is patriarchy’s iron fist as naked as in the oppression of animals which serves as the model and training ground for all forms of oppression.”
Self-published 30 pp. $1.25
FASCISM/ANTI-FASCISM by Jean Barrot
“There is no revolution without the destruction of the state.” Using this as a guide, Barrot constructs a devastating critique of revolutionary movements which defend “democratic” forms of the State against its right-wing variants.
Black Cat Press 37 pp. $.75
TEN COMMON ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMAL RIGHTS REFUTED by Perry Philips
“Plants feel pain, don’t they?” and other such inanities rebutted in clear, sensible terms.
People for Animals 22 pp. $1.50
PROPAGANDA: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes by Jacques Ellul
“The theme of Propaganda is quite simply…that when our new technology encompasses any culture or society, the result is propaganda. Ellul has made many splendid contributions in this book.” Marshall Mcluhan
Vintage 313 pp. $5.95
THE TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY by Jacques Ellul
“The Technological Society is one of the most important books of the second half of the twentieth century. In it, Ellul convincingly demonstrates that technology, which we continue to conceptualize as the servant of man, will overthrow everything that prevents the internal logic of its development, including humanity itself…” -Robert Theo-bald, The Nation
Vintage Books 449 pp. $4.95
AUTONOMOUS TECHNOLOGY Technics-outof-Control as a Theme in Political Thought by Langdon Winner
Winner outlines the paradoxes of technological development, the images of alienation and liberation evoked by machines, and assesses the historical conditions underlying the exponential growth of technology. He evokes the myths of Frankenstein and Prometheus to illustrate that we may all face a permanent bondage to our own inventions.
MIT Press 335 pp. $9.95
REBEL VIOLENCE v. HIERARCHICAL VIOLENCE: A Chronology of Anti-State Violence on the UK Mainland—July 1985-May 1986 Published Anonymously
Trenchant analysis of continuing English anti-state violence, riots, “hooliganism,” and attacks on the police along with hilarious reprints from mainstream papers decrying it all.
Combustion 8.5 X 11 35 pp. $1.50
NEUTRON GUN assembled by Gerry Reith
“There will be people who say that mere ‘ideas’ cannot be dangerous…..well, they just never had any ideas like these. Neutron Gun doesn’t just open Pandora’s box, but literally tears it apart. More than just a book, this is a concussion device…”—Denis McBee The late Gerry Reith and friends with explosive fiction, inventive graphics and weird fliers.
Neither/Nor Press 72 pp. $2.95
Free foreign publications still available. Please specify language and/or country of interest.