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Book Review: Civilisation by Regis Debray
Chauvinism infects a tedious attempt to investigate US cultural domination in Europe
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Civilisation
by Regis Debray
(Verso, £16.99)
MARX’S maxim that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force,” will almost certainly be familiar to readers of the Morning Star.
At first sight in his book, Regis Debray appears to be fleshing out that maxim in offering the reader an analysis of US cultural dominance in Europe as being a direct consequence of its economic power. Yet while Civilisation promises much, it actually delivers little beyond further tarnishing the reputation of its author.
Debray has been a fixture in the French philosophy scene and in and out of various transient leftist movements for decades. His usual stance is to back the ultra-leftist cause and he has thus found little difficulty in also accommodating himself to various projects of the French capitalist state, including the Mitterrand presidency.
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