Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism To Postmodernism And Beyond (Key Contemporary Thinkers),Used

This Is The First Fullscale Critique In English Of The Work Of Jean Baudrillard, A Fascinating French Thinker Who Has, During The Past Twenty Years, Opened New Lines Of Cultural Thought And Discourse While Sharply Questioning Many Of The Marxian, Freudian, And Structuralist Positions That Were Characteristic Of The Previous Era Of Radical Social Theory. According To A Canadian Journal That Devoted A Special Issue To Him, Baudrillard Is A Talisman: A Symptom, A Sign, A Charm, And, Above All, A Password To The Next Universe. The Author Argues That Though Today Baudrillard Is Celebrated As One Of The Most Innovative Thinkers In The Discourses Of Poststructuralism And Postmodernism, His Reception Has Been Remarkably Uncritical And Ahistorical. There Has Been Little Analysis Of His Complex Intellectual Trajectory, Of His Involvement In A Series Of Debates Within The French Postmay 1968 Intellectual Scene, And Of His Dramatic Transformations In Thinking And Writing In The 1970S And 1980S. In This Book, The Author Begins The Process Of Mapping Out, Contextualizing, And Critically Appraising Baudrillards Trajectory. He Deals First With Baudrillards Early Writings, Notably The System Of Objects And The Consumer Society, Which Form The Original Matrix Of His Thought. The Remainder Of The Book Is Organized Thematically, Analyzing Baudrillards Early Development Of A Newmarxian Social Theory (The Mirror Of Production), His Break With Marxism (Symbolic Exchange And Death), His Turn To A Postmodern Position (Forget Foucault And Of Seduction), And The Surprising Developments In His Work Of The 1970S And 1980S (America And The Divine Left).