Lefebvre, Love and Struggle: Spatial Dialectics

Henri Lefebvre was one of the most significant European thinkers of the twentieth century. At the centre of intellectual life in Paris for almost 80 years, he was involved with Andre Breton’s Surrealism as a student, with the young Sartre and the formalization of Existentialism, and in later years with Guy Debord’s ‘Situationists’ and the activists of the mid 1970s in Paris. Lefebvre carried ideas from generation to generation of the political avant garde and yet he remains largely an enigma. Lefebvre, Love and Struggle provides the only comprehensive guide to Lefebvre’s work. Rob Shields draws on the full range of Lefebvre’s writings including many previously untranslated and unpublished works and correspondence. Topics covered include Lefebvre’s early relationship with Marxism, his critique of the rise of fascism, as well as his Critique of Everyday Life and the significant work on urban space for which he is best known today.