Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard, alternately provocative and astonishing, is one of the leading theorists of media and culture. Regarded by many as the chief prophet of postmodernism, his writings raise important issues about the changing nature of social and political life in our contemporary, media-saturated age.

This book makes his most important writings available in a single volume. It includes selections from the entire range of his work, from his early writings on consumer culture and the political economy of the sign to his more recent work on desire, simulation and the 'hyperreal'.

This new edition includes five new extracts from Baudrillard's writings in the 1990s, including his writings on the Gulf War, on the internet and his autobiographical reflections. It also includes an updated introduction by Mark Poster which provides an extremely lucid overview of Baudrillard's work.

Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings is an excellent introduction to the thought of one of the most important and influential thinkers of our day.

Acknowledgements.

Notes on the Translation.

Introduction: Mark Poster.

1. The System of Objects.

2. Consumer Society.

3. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign.

4. The Mirror of Production.

5. Symbolic Exchange and Death.

6. On Seduction.

7. Simulacra and Simulations.

8. Fatal Strategies.

9. The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media.

10. Cool Memories.

11. The Gulf War Did Not Take Place.

12. The Illusion of the End.

13. The Perfect Crime.

14. Paroxysm: Interviews with Philippe Petit.

'Jean Baudrillard continues to be an illuminating thinker as we move into the new high-tech millennium that he has anticipated in his writings of the past decades. Mark Poster's collection contains key texts from the entire trajectory of Baudrillard's work. Featuring new translations and concluding with a recent interview, Selected Writings provides access to one of the most important writers of our time.'

Douglas Kellner, University of California, Los Angeles

Jean Baudrillard was born in Reims in 1929 and now lives in Paris. From 1966 to 1987 he taught sociology at the University of Paris X (Nanterre).

Mark Poster is Director of the Film Studies Program and Professor of History at University of California, Irvine

Jean Baudrillard, alternately provocative and astonishing, is one of the leading theorists of media and culture. Regarded by many as the chief prophet of postmodernism, his writings raise important issues about the changing nature of social and political life in our contemporary, media-saturated age.

This book makes his most important writings available in a single volume. It includes selections from the entire range of his work, from his early writings on consumer culture and the political economy of the sign to his more recent work on desire, simulation and the 'hyperreal'.

This new edition includes five new extracts from Baudrillard's writings in the 1990s, including his writings on the Gulf War, on the internet and his autobiographical reflections. It also includes an updated introduction by Mark Poster which provides an extremely lucid overview of Baudrillard's work.

Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings is an excellent introduction to the thought of one of the most important and influential thinkers of our day.