La Société du spectacle vs The Theory of the Leisure Class: Which Should You Read?

La Société du spectacle Guy Debord · 1967 ★★★★☆ 4.0 167 pages · ≈ 3 h 06 m · Challenging

“IN SOCIETIES dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles.”

Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative as Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960s up to the present, the volatile…

The Theory of the Leisure Class Thorstein Veblen · 1899 ★★★★☆ 3.9 172 pages · ≈ 3 h 11 m · Demanding

“The institution of a leisure class is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture; as, for instance, in feudal Europe or feudal Japan.”

Considered the first in-depth critique of consumerism, economist Thorstein Veblen's 1899 book The Theory of the Leisure Class has come to be regarded as one of the great works of economic theory. Using contemporary and…