Negative Horizon: An Essay in Dromoscopy

By Paul Virilio

Book Overview

Negative Horizon is Paul Virilio's most original and unified exploration of the key themes and ideas running through his work and thought. Provocatively and forcefully written, it sets out Virilio's theory of dromoscopy: a means of apprehending speed and its pivotal - and potentially destructive - role in contemporary global society. Applying this theory to Western political and military history, Virilio exposes a compulsion to accelerate, and the rise of a politics of time - encapsulated in the importance accorded to speed - over territorial politics of space. Moving through human history from the cave paintings at Lascaux that depict the first hunters, through the domestication of animals and the building of the first roads, to the 'stealth technologies' deployed in contemporary warfare, Virilio shows how resistance to speed and movement has consistently been eroded, and the physical world adapted, in order to satisfy the urge to move further and faster. In exposing what he believes to be the consequences of this constant acceleration for human sensory perception and, ultimately, global democracy, Virilio offers a vision of history and politics as disturbing as it is original. first time, one of Virilio's seminal works - set to be required reading for anyone interested in the rise of new technologies and the direction of global politics.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826478425
• ISBN13: 9780826478429
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Post-Structural Theory for the Crash Test Dummy

If you enjoyed the movie "Crash," but didn't feel like you understood the message, here is a wonderful theoretical explanation for you. Negative Horizons examines the violence of speed. I would say that it's heavy theory that reads like a thriller. It was absolutely engaging and terrifying to read, especially while taking a airplane home from DC on a dark and stormy night.