A Game of War by Alice Becker-Ho & Guy Debord

Founder and theorist of the Situationist International, and author of the massively influential book The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord (19311994) was also a connoisseur of military strategy. In his first volume of autobiography, Panegyric, Debord recounted his interest in classical war theory as espoused by the Prussian military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz. Debord devised and wrote the board game and book A Game of War in collaboration with his wife, Alice Becker-Ho, who has assisted with the production of this publication. As he writes in Panegyric: I have studied the logic of war. Moreover I succeeded, a long time ago, in presenting the basics of its movements on a rather simple board game. I have played this game and, in the often difficult conduct of my life I have utilized lessons from it. The game became Debords obsession in the years before his suicide in 1994. This first translation of the book (by Donald Nicholson-Smith, himself a past member of the Situationist group) comes slipcased with the board and counters.

In January 1977, Debord founded the Society for Strategic and Historical Games. The Society had an immediate goal: to produce a “Game of War” which Debord had already designed in his head in the 1950s. Inspired by the military theory of Carl von Clausewitz and the European campaigns of Napoleon, Debord’s game is a chess-variant for two players. “The surprises of this [game] seem to be inexhaustible,” he confessed later. “It might be the only thing in all my work—I’m afraid to admit—that one might dare say has some value.” —Cabinet Magazine review

Mint copy as issued with slipcase.

$ 175.00