Open sky

This is a bleak political analysis of the social destruction wrought by modern technologies of communication and surveillance.

Expanding on an earlier work, Paul Virilio explores the growing danger of what he calls a "generalized accident", provoked by the breakdown of the collective and individual relation to time, space and movement in the context of global electronic media.

But this is not merely a lament for the loss of real geographical spaces, distance, intimacy or democracy.

The book also calls for a revolt - against the insidious and accelerating manipulation of perception by the electronic media and repressive political power, against the tyranny of "real time", and against the infantilism of cyberhype.

Paul Vilrilio makes a case for a new ethics of perception, and a new cology, one which will not only strive to protect the natural world from pollution and destruction, but will also combat the devastation of urban communities by proliferating technologies of control and virtuality.

Paul Virilio is the author of "Burker Archeologie", "Un Paysage d'Evenements", "Speed and Politics", "The Art of the Motor", "The Vision Machine" and "War and Cinema".