ABSTRACT
This book presents in many respects a different Henri Lefebvre. Whereas, in the English-speaking context, the most influential Lefebvre readings have centered on urban marxist political economy and postmodern geographical interpretations, most of the contributors to this volume go beyond these views. Some of them reconstruct Lefebvre’s epistemological basis in order to understand his theoretical concepts, such as space, difference, and everyday life. Others trace links between Lefebvre and a number of his intellectual contemporaries, such as Axelos, Bachelard, Breton, Debord, Gramsci, Heidegger, Kroll, Lukács, and Merleau-Ponty.While noting the limitations of Lefebvre’s theoretical life-project, most authors in this volume understand Lefebvre as an important source of inspiration for their work and have stressed the importance of “translating” his work for today’s world and political conjuncture.
