The Perfect Crime (Radical Thinkers): Set 3

New
Paperback
2008
$19.85

In his new book, perhaps the most cogent expression of his mature thought, Jean Baudrillard turns detective in order to investigate a crime which he hopes may yet be solved: the murder of reality. To solve the crime would be to unravel the social and technological processes by which reality has quite simply vanished under the deadly glare of media real time. But Baudrillard is not merely intending to lament the disappearance of the real, an occurrence he recently described as the most important event of modern history, nor even to meditate upon the paradoxes of reality and illusion, truth and its masks. The Perfect Crime is also the work of a great moraliste: a penetrating examination of vital aspects of the social, political and cultural life of the advanced democracies in the (very) late twentieth century. Where critics like McLuhan once exposed the alienating consequences of the medium, Baudrillard lays bare the depredatory effects of an oppressive transparency on our social lives, of a relentless positivity on our critical faculties, and of a withering high definition on our very sense of reality.

Synopsis

In his new book, perhaps the most cogent expression of his mature thought, Jean Baudrillard turns detective in order to investigate a crime which he hopes may yet be solved: the murder of reality. To solve the crime would be to unravel the social and technological processes by which reality has quite simply vanished under the deadly glare of media real time. But Baudrillard is not merely intending to lament the disappearance of the real, an occurrence he recently described as the most important event of modern history, nor even to meditate upon the paradoxes of reality and illusion, truth and its masks. "The Perfect Crime" is also the work of a great moraliste: a penetrating examination of vital aspects of the social, political and cultural life of the advanced democracies in the (very) late twentieth century. Where critics like McLuhan once exposed the alienating consequences of the medium, Baudrillard lays bare the depredatory effects of an oppressive transparency on our social lives, of a relentless positivity on our critical faculties, and of a withering high definition on our very sense of reality."

$19.85

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Publisher: Verso
Published: 17 Jan 2008
ISBN 10: 1844672034
ISBN 13: 9781844672035

Media Reviews

Rarely do words convey such urgency as on a page by Baudrillard. Los Angeles Times Book Review A golden treasury of theory Eric Banks, Bookforum Verso's beautifully designed Radical Thinkers series, which brings together seminal works by leading left-wing intellectuals, is a sophisticated blend of theory and thought. The 12 authors whose writings are included in the series have worked tirelessly to expose the mechanisms by which culture and knowledge are manufactured, managed and controlled. Ziauddin Sardar, New Statesman

Author Bio

Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) began teaching sociology at the Universit de Paris-X in 1966. He retired from academia in 1987 to write books and travel until his death in 2007. His many works include Simulations and Simulacra, America, The Perfect Crime, The System of Objects, Passwords, The Transparency of Evil, The Spirit of Terrorism, and Fragments, among others.