Panicsville: Paul Virilio and the Esthetic of Disaster

This article is a synoptic review of the recent work of Paul Virilio, conducted through the book, City of Panic. I point to the problems with the increasingly apocalyptic content and tone of Virilio’s work on modernity by referring to recent social science research on the city that makes it possible to construct a somewhat more hesitant account, not least, or so I argue, because hesitant accounts are closer to the way the world is.