Symbolic Exchange and Death (Theory, Culture & Society)
Iain Hamilton Grant's excellent translation ofSymbolic Exchange and Death, perhaps Baudrillard's most widely admired text, or at least, as he himself once wryly observed, "the last book that inspired any confidence".... For anyone seeking a way into Baudrillard's highly inventive, uncompromising, and occasionally maddening oeuvre,Symbolic Exchange and Deathis still one of the best places from which to startRadical PhilosophyArguing that a political economy predicted on commodity value has long since been replaced by the political economy of the sign. Baudrillard traces the hyperrealist consequences of the "end of production" through chapters focusing on fashion, the body and death. The seeming inevitability of the triumph of the "semiotic" commodity over "symbolic" (gift) exchange is shown to be an error perpetrated by Marxist theory, which has itself been absorbed into "the code" that governs the transformation of value. Baudrillard's intention is to defeat the code by turning its own logic against it, inverting Marx, Freud, and finally Saussure in an effort to abolish "value" itself. His analysis is carried along on its own rhetorical force... achieves extraordinary insight into the malaise pervading late-capitalist societiesChoiceOf all the major works which contributed to the surge of interest in recent French philosophy, only two remained untranslated. Until now. Earlier this year saw the publication of Lyotard'sLibidinal Economy. Now we have Baudrillard'sSymbolic Exchange and Death. Baudrillard has a warm glow of nostalgia about his earlier work. He claims it is "the last book that inspired any confidence". If the newly translatedSymbolic Exchange and Deathhad been available earlier, the perception of Baudrillard as a postmodernist playboy might have been different. It bridges the gap between his early serious work and the later funny workThe Modern ReviewThis is easily Baudrillard's most important work. It is a key intervention in the debates on modernity and postmodernity and the site of his postmodern turn. Anyone who wants to understand the complexity and provocativeness of Baudrillard's richest period must read this textDouglas KellnerWithout doubt Baudrillard's most important bookMike Gane