Understanding Henri Lefebvre

Description

Henri Lefebvre has been celebrated as one of the most influential social theorists of the twentieth century. Understanding Henri Lefebvre places Lefebvre in his historical and intellectual context and analyzes the extraordinary range of his work, across politics, philosophy, history, literature and culture. Particular emphasis is given to Lefebvre's trilogy of inspirational thinkers-Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche; his links to contemporaries such as Heidegger, Axelos and the Situationalists; and his critiques of existentialism and structuralism. Analysis of his writings on cities are balanced with those on rural communities, the production of space connected to ideas of time and history, and everyday life linked to the festival and cultural revolution. Understanding Henri Lefebvre offers the most wide-ranging and reliable account of this central theorist available.

Stuart Elden is a Professor of Political Geography at Durham University.

'...In a relatively short book, Elden has achieved a great deal. He combines considerable breadth of understanding, with a rigourous attention to the details of Lefebvre's work...Anyone with more than a passing interest in Lefebvre, especially if they have been unable to interrogate his original works in French, will benefit from a detailed engagement with Elden's sensitive and provocative analysis of one of France's most important theories.' -- Tim Unwin '...the most thorough, complete and rich account of the full range and scope of Henri Lefebvre's intellectual concersn from the 1920s to his death in 1991.' -- Neil Maycroft * Capital and Class * '...Lefebvre was extraordinarily prolific and his oeuvre contains numerous works that are often neglected or have yet to be brought into focus by commentators. This is something that Elden's truly compendious Understanding Henri Lefebvre helps to correct...Elden has performed a fine service to Lefebvre scholarship here. His book will help to orient an English-speaking audience to the sophisticated philosophical background of one of the most original calls to revolutionary thought and action of the twentieth century.' -- Andrew Aitken * Radical Philosophy *