Customer Reviews

Introducing Baudrillard

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

I must disagree with the majority of the previous reviewers and say that I found Introducting Baudrillard to be a more-or-less positive, helpful text, if you use it in an effective way. Another reviewer mentioned how this book should not under any circumstances be used as "cramming" material or as Baudrillard for Dummies. I fully agree, because that's REALLY not what this book is. It's opaque, it's pretentious, it presupposes that you have at least something of a grounding in critical and cultural theory (and know its lingo), and frankly like all of the Introducing books, it's very, very poorly organized.

But hey, I never really ASKED the book to be Baudrillard for Dummies. I read The Perfect Crime on my own before, which left me intrigued (mostly by Baudrillard's hypnotic lexicon) but thoroughly confused, and I bought Introducing Baudrillard so I could get some clarity. It helped me put the stuff that I had just read into a new context and let me step away from my own conceptions of the work. I kept it handy while reading Simulations, and it helped tremendously to eek out some hairy things.

So in sum, Introducing Baudrillard shouldn't completely screw you over if you treat it more like an interlocutor and less like a teacher, if that makes any sense. Use it as a companion rather than a source. Recommended for those who want to slog it out through primary sources but wouldn't mind some company.

...but not to the thinkers you must be familiar with to understand him. So, I'd have to say that both reviews below (above?) mine are accurate. This text is an *excellent* introduction to Baudrillard and many of his theories but it also refers to Marx and Freud and if you intend to understand what's in this book, you'd better have at least a basic grasp of their philosophies, as well. This book won't be so great for a group of 8th graders, but for anyone with a few good liberal arts credits under their belt- understanding this shouldn't be a problem. It really is a wealth of information presented in a concise and entertaining way. I feel like I could flip through it- or hell, read the whole thing- 10 mpre times and still be stimulated by its content. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in Baudrillard, consumerism, modern society, or philosophy in general.

This is a decent introductory picture book, though it makes far too many assumptions regarding one's knowledge of philosophy and sociology prior to encountering this allegedly introductory text. References are made to the works Marx, Freud, etc., without ever attempting to explain the nature of such ideas. Even though this is a "comic book," it is not wholly introductory in nature. Too bad. One is better off with Postmodernism for Beginners, even though it features only a small section on Baudrillard.

First off about me. I read philosophy books as a hobby or passion of mine. I am not a scholar and do need some guidance to some subjects out there. I have read many of the Introducing series and those have helped me lots. Some of those include Nietzsche, evolution and Postmodernism. After reading those I persued the subjects with further more in depth readings and I owe some thanks to these first introductory books. However, this is a diferent case.

First off I had an interest in Baudrillard and wanted something introductoy. The way this book is written is horrendous. There is no real organizing to the information and even if u disregard that it is hard to even tell what the writer is trying to say. Putting question marks on lines make them a question for example. It is very confusing reading some lines as some are meant as a joke and others are sarcastic remarks. I dont find either amuzing or funny. I have given alot of time to this book giving it chances and Im almost finished. Dont know where else to look for a good introductory book on Baudrillard but this is definitely not the place for ANY starter. Maybe a crash course on this guy isnt easy. What I truely hate is not caring about the quality being published by the series. It is insulting and a robbery.

Do NOT get this book.

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.

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!