Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press, 1985 (2nd Printing). Softbound. Translated by Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Preface by Michel Foucault. Intro by Mark Seem. 'The truth is,' Deleuze and Guattari write in this paradigm-shifting work of philosophy, 'sexuality is everywhere: the way a bureaucrat fondles his records, a judge administers justice, a businessman causes money to circulate; the way the bourgeoisie fucks the proletariat; and so on. . . . Flags, nations, armies, banks get a lot of people aroused.' The first of two volumes on the relationship between capitalism and schizophrenia, the duo would follow it up with A Thousand Plateaus in 1980 after causing an initial wave of controversy with this Freud- and Lacan-confronting opening salvo. This edition features a hard-to-find cover with violet watercolor streaking and idiosyncratic, gap-jointed type, as well as an expertly branded, post–May '68 title page with a pinpointed Oedipal target and a frontispiece depicting Richard Lindner's 1954 painting, 'Boy with Machine', in which, according to the authors, 'the turgid little boy has already plugged a desiring-machine into a social machine, short-circuiting the parents.'