Simon During. Exit Capitalism: Literary Culture, Theory, and Post-Secular Modernity. London: Routledge, 2010. ISBN: 0415246555 [Book Review] // Mark Fisher. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Ropley, UK: Zer0 Books, 2010. ISBN: 1846943175 [Book Review]

The two books under review seek, in quite different ways, to diagnose the ideological and cultural stagnation of early twenty-first century capitalism. At a time when neither “left” political parties nor current intellectual movements appear to provide genuine resistance or alternatives, both these books conclude by offering proposals for new ways of conceiving of left-wing politics and the role of intellectuals in their dissemination. Simon During and Mark Fisher identify this new stage of capitalism in which we are living in similar terms – During calls it “endgame” or “no-exit” capitalism, while Fisher adopts and adapts the term “capitalist realism” from the German pop art movement of the 1960s that bears that name.