Real Review 17 takes the concept of the “extinction burst” — the intensification of bad behaviour before collapse — as its editorial framework for diagnosing modernity’s most entrenched pathologies: patriarchy, plutocracy, colonialism, and the denial of irreversible decline.
About This Book
This issue of Real Review assembles a remarkable range of voices to interrogate whether the West’s worst tendencies are not aberrations but terminal symptoms. The editorial premise is precise: extinction bursts are acts of active denial, and the current political and cultural moment is saturated with them. Contributors move across economics, political philosophy, ecology, and visual culture — connecting Marx’s Capital to Bin Laden, disposable vapes to oil spills, and corporate merch to spacesuits. The result is a journal issue that functions as both critical theory and documentary record, addressed to anyone who wants tools for thinking clearly about structural collapse and cultural resistance.
Key Features
- Contributors include Yancey Strickler, Richard Wentworth, Wendy Brown, Noam Chomsky, Francis Fukuyama, Rage Against the Machine, Jack Self, Oluwatobiloba Ajayi, Neo-Metabolism, Noah Gotlib, Max Creasy, Tanja Engleberts, Sarah Owen, Rose Theodora, Stephanie Sherman, Lukáš Likavčan, Rachel Pearl, the Office of Applied Strategy, Sophia Sheppard, and Maddy Weavers
- Published by Real Review, ISBN: 9781838493455
What You’ll Discover
- How the concept of the extinction burst reframes contemporary political regression — from racism and plutocracy to rentierism and genocide — as desperate self-preservation rather than aberration
- Francis Fukuyama in conversation with Jack Self on impossible realities, alongside a review of Bin Laden and the creative millennial
- Wendy Brown’s preface to a new translation of Marx’s Capital, and Neo-Metabolism’s review of The Limits to Growth, placing ecology and political economy in direct dialogue
- Visual and documentary contributions — from Richard Wentworth’s postcard walks to Max Creasy’s record of the last disposable vape and Tanja Engleberts’ photography of oil at sea — grounding abstraction in material culture
About the Author
Jack Self is the editor of Real Review. In this issue he contributes a conversation with Francis Fukuyama and a review connecting Bin Laden to the creative millennial class.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover magazine
- Pages: [Details available upon request]
- Dimensions: 260 x 115 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781838493455
- Publisher: Real Review
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects, designers, and critical theorists engaged with political philosophy, cultural decline, ecology, and the intellectual frameworks shaping contemporary practice.