City of Panic

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City of Panic takes the reader on a journey across the airy boulevards of Paris and into the crypt of its Metro. For Virilio, whose sense of cities was formed by earlier wars, Paris is both the City of Light and the City of Panic. Written in the shadow of war, City of Panic argues that cities everywhere have been the dedicated target of political and technological terror throughout the 20th century. The wanton erasure of the past, the construction of identikit places, the proliferation of gated-communities, the ever-widening net of surveillance, the privatisation of what was public ... Now every metropolis is a war zone and every metropolis is the same. In this globalized and militarized everywhere, all citizens are becoming one citizen - saturated, standardized and synchronized - ever-more reliant on a media fabricating a world of fear. For the panic of the 21st century is simply the final phase of the pincer movement. Place-less, media-fed, panic-struck - welcome to the desert of the real.

Reviews

'Essential reading for anyone trying to make sense of America's out-of-control war of prevention.' The Guardian 'A speed-driven stream of consciousness centring on the city-world, the metropolitics of globalization, telesurveillance, bunkerization and hyperterrorism.' Times Literary Supplement 'It is no accident that when Virilio's dromology (the study of speed) crashes head-long into semiology (the study of signs) the order of things starts to look precarious. Over a diverse career as professor of architecture, film critic, urbanist, military historian, and peace strategist, Virilio has interrogated the integral relationships of security and territory, war and cinema, speed and politics, technology and culture, and left no prisoners.' James Der Derian, author of Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network 'If Walter Benjamin had one true intellectual descendant who extended his inquiries into the second half of the twentieth century, this must be Paul Virilio.' Lev Manovich, author of The Language of New Media 'One of the most verbally exuberant of modern philosophers.' The Guardian 'A refreshing antidote to the 'global village' mantra of Net gurus, Virilio writes in the subversive tradition of Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard.' Publishers Weekly 'One of the most original thinkers of our time.' Liberation 'Virilio writes on the edge of physics, philosophy, politics and urbanism.' New Statesman 'Paul Virilio is the emblematic French theorist of technology.' C-theory 'Virilio is an impressive commentator on the conditioning power of the mass media. ... He flits from image to image like a poet and usually builds to a profound climax.' Saturday Guardian 'City of Panic offers some good fireworks for newcomers to Virilio, or for fans who want a post-9/11 update on key themes.' Scott McQuire, Media and Communication, University of Melbourne

Author Bio

PAUL VIRILIO is one of our foremost cultural critics. Architect and urban planner and former director of the Ecole Speciale d'Architecture in Paris, he has written widely on film, architecture, war and technology. Translated by Julie Rose JULIE ROSE is a freelance translator and winner of the PEN Medallion for Translation.