Translation of the 2nd ed. of: Critique de la vie quotidienne Includes bibliographical references (p. 255-273) and index v. 1. Introduction

Henri Lefebvre’s three-volume Critique of Everyday Life is perhaps the richest, most prescient work by one of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers. The first volume presented an introduction to the concept of everyday life. Written twenty years later, this second volume attempts to establish the necessary formal instruments for analysis, and outlines a series of theoretical categories within everyday life such as the theory of the semantic field and the theory of moments. The moment at which the book appeared—1962—was significant both for France and for Lefebvre himself: he was just beginning his career as a lecturer in sociology at Strasbourg, and then at Nanterre, and many of the ideas which were influential in the events leading up to 1968 are to found in this critique. In its impetuous, often undisciplined prose, the reader may catch a glimpse of how charismatic a lecturer Lefebvre must have been. The last great classical philosopher. – Fredric Jameson An historian and a sociologist, Henri Lefebvre developed his ideas over seven decades through intellectual confrontation with figures as diverse as Bergson, Breton, Sartre, Debord and Althusser. He authored more than sixty books, from Le nationalisme contre les nations in 1937 to La rythmanalyse which was published posthumously in 1992. Volume I of the Critique of Everyday Life was published by Verso in 1992; Volume III will be published in January 2006.