Introducing Baudrillard

Rating:
Summary: Moronic.
Review: Icon's Books' series of comic-book reductions of the works of the most abstruse thinkers scrapes the bottom of the barrel with this publication.

Never mind the fact that this series exposes the scholar to the ridiculous spectacle of, for example, Jacques Derrida's writings expressed through the same medium as that of the Beano: it's the attempt to compress and simplify complex ideas that falls flat. And it's so obvious that neither the authors nor the publishers care that they have not succeeded.

If you're a student, and you think this series of books might be ideal for cramming, forget it: you might as *well* read the Beano. And if you thought Introducing Postmodernism was badly explained, believe me, this one has all the comprehensibility of Joyce encrypted. It spends about four lines (i.e, one page) skimming over *some* of Baudrillard's thoughts. If you think you'll understand Baudrillard's corpus of delphic pronoucements by being taken through him at that blinding speed, then the more fool you: I'm afraid there are some writers who simply can't be distilled down to Cliffs Notes or worse. The quick-fix approach has ended in failure for the publishers, since the too-exiguous summary has merely created more incomprehension. They have tried to summarise a demanding body of work to cater to the lazy and the incomprehending. Sorry, guys: Baudrillard for Dummies is an oxymoron.

Rating:
Summary: The best introduction to Baudrillard's thought
Review: Ignore the above - like all the books in the Introducing series, this is an exceptionally coherent and successful overview. The format is particularly appropriate and successful in the case of Baudrillard, and it is possible for the intelligent reader to grasp all his key ideas. The best introduction to his thought.

Rating:
Summary: [price] worth spending
Review: Like most of the Totem Introducing series, I thought Introducing Baudrillard was going to be not quite in depth and truely lacking. Where Introducing Postmodernism was medicore but attempted to go in depth, Introducing Baudrillard is consistently shallow.

My main gripe is the lack of clearity, and it's illogical plot of Baudrillard's philosophical development. And the way book is written is flat out horrible, which makes the whole read incomprehrensible.

If your an undergrad student looking to learn about contemporary and postmodern philosophy like myself, well FORGET INTRODUCING BAUDRILLARD!

Rating:
Summary: Unhealthy Pretentious Chaos
Review: Like most of the Totem Introducing series, I thought Introducing Baudrillard was going to be not quite in depth and truely lacking. Where Introducing Postmodernism was medicore but attempted to go in depth, Introducing Baudrillard is consistently shallow.

My main gripe is the lack of clearity, and it's illogical plot of Baudrillard's philosophical development. And the way book is written is flat out horrible, which makes the whole read incomprehrensible.

If your an undergrad student looking to learn about contemporary and postmodern philosophy like myself, well FORGET INTRODUCING BAUDRILLARD!

Rating:
Summary: [price] worth spending
Review: The "Introducing" series are very effective in my view because they both go in depth with the critical theories or foundations of a certain thinker and go through their less significant points. I think seeing all the points without sustaining all belief into the ideas of a person like Baudrillard is great by not getting too caught up in their claims. "Introducing Baudrillard" compares his significance as a thinker to other contemporary and past philosophy very well and being familiar with the intensity of Baudrillard's claims is well worth the time and money.