Document Type
Review Essay
Abstract
[First paragraph]
In many ways, Jean Baudrillard has never really attracted the critical attention that he deserves; his early brilliant books, such as For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1981) and The Mirror of Production (1975) remain resolutely out of print, perhaps because they do not accord with his recent high profile in the media. The hermetic obscurantism of these older texts repels a more casual reader, steeped as they are in poststructuralist theory and remote Marxist anthropology. They are also more rigorously scholarly than books such as Impossible Exchange, and therefore a less pleasurable read for the academically uninitiated. However, Baudrillard's middle phase, typified by Symbolic Exchange and Death (1993), is constantly in print, although largely due to the earlier chapters on simulation, which may appeal to those involved in careers in film or television; the overall argument that he is attempting to make regarding symbolic exchange receives far less critical attention. It is Baudrillard's "fatal" phase of theory, published almost exclusively by Verso, which has established his current notoriety.
Repository Citation
McNamara, Liam. "On Jean Baudrillard's Impossible Exchange." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2002, pp. 1–7. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol2/iss2/7