The Spirit of Terrorism, New Revised Edition (Paperback)

~ (Author), Chris Turner (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Review

First prize for cerebral cold-bloodedness goes to French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. -- New York Times

Provocative...he brings a reading of signs and symbols most will find interesting. -- Toronto Globe and Mail

Product Description

Baudrillard sees the power of the terrorists as lying in the symbolism of slaughter—not merely the reality of death, but in a sacrifice that challenges the whole system. Where previously the old revolutionary sought to conduct a struggle between real forces in the context of ideology and politics, the new terrorist mounts a powerful symbolic challenge which, when combined with high-tech resources, constitutes an unprecedented assault on an over-sophisticated and vulnerable West. This new edition is up-dated with the essays "Hypotheses on Terrorism" and "Violence of the Global".

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Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Verso (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1859844480
• ISBN-13: 978-1859844489
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 4.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #99,751 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars "There's an end to all your talk about the virtual-this is something real!" (p.28), January 26, 2008

By	M. Ruiz "Lost Inner Space" (Nu-Jork, Ju-Es-Ay) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The violence of the real, or the reality of violence is the only thing power understands. Confronted with suicides, the system (indeed any system) begins to mimic suicide, ultimately committing itself to its own suicide.
I won't pretend to understand all of this great writer's words. Partly because my understanding of French is limited. Partly because I have only read a translation. And lastly because I have been fed oh so many Americanisms.
This is a good intro into exploring possible interpretations and misunderstandings embedded in our conceptions of the "World". Reading it has helped me to begin to demystify the political concept of Terrorism, especially its connotations within the virtual world of media discourse.
"To the point that the idea of freedom, a new and recent idea, is already fading from minds and mores, and liberal globalization is coming about in precisely the opposite form-a police state globalization, a total control, a terror based on 'law and order' measures. Deregulation ends up in a maximum of constraints and restrictions, akin to those of a fundamentalist society." (p.32 from the unrevised edition)
I would also recommend "The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomenon" (1993) by Jean Baudrillard.

28 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars America, March 24, 2004

By	steve "steveknlp2" - See all my reviews

Well, this is a very short book. If you arte not familiar with Baudrillard's academic social theory and philosophical works, much of the commentary may come across as superficial, cynical or just plain odd. The unreferenced paraphrasal of Clauschwitz's formula (earlier inverted by Foucault), the references to 'symbols' and death as 'sacrifice'; none of this will make any sense unless you have read Symbolic Exchange and Death, or Signs and Simulations, and like those english journos who reviewed 'The Gulf War did not take place' with similar ignorance, if you take it only at that level you will miss the whole point, and look like a stupid arse.

Sacrifice referes to his thesis in symbolic exchange and death that the only resistance to the 'system' is suicide, building on the third volume of Marx's Capital; so that dead labour now outweighs living labour, we all live in a world of death, the only refusal is to stop the system killin us.

As the editor of the edition of 'The Gulf war did not take place' that I read showed; many people criticsed Baudrillard comparing him to a classical 'enlightenment' thinker like Noam Chomsky. But this edition then had a quote by Chomsky in the intro where he said it wasn't a 'war' because that conventionally meant two sides fighting against each other. Similarly, Baudrillard's point that we have all imagined the collapse of american empire; in a couple of different places in his work on US foreign policy Chomsky talks about the war mongers in Vietnam and what they said about the 'VC', hypothesising what they would have done if the VC had launched attacks in downtown New York.

Besides which, why should Baudrillard have to explain himself to you in any case? If we can't see through the oxymoronism of a 'War on Terrorism' we deserve to blown up in densly populated city centres like the sheep we are.

15 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars America, March 24, 2004

By	steve "steveknlp2" - See all my reviews

Well, this is a very short book. If you are not familiar with Baudrillard's academic social theory and philosophical works, much of the commentary may come across as superficial, cynical or just plain odd. The unreferenced paraphrasal of Clauschwitz's formula (earlier inverted by Foucault), the references to 'symbols' and death as 'sacrifice'; none of this will make any sense unless you have read Symbolic Exchange and Death, or Signs and Simulations, and like those english journos who reviewed 'The Gulf War did not take place' with similar ignorance, if you take it only at that level you will miss the whole point, and look like a stupid arse.

Sacrifice referes to his thesis in symbolic exchange and death that the only resistance to the 'system' is suicide, building on the third volume of Marx's Capital; so that dead labour now outweighs living labour, we all live in a world of death, the only refusal is to stop the system killin us.

As the editor of the edition of 'The Gulf war did not take place' that I read showed; many people criticsed Baudrillard comparing him to a classical 'enlightenment' thinker like Noam Chomsky. But this edition then had a quote by Chomsky in the intro where he said it wasn't a 'war' because that conventionally meant two sides fighting against each other. Similarly, Baudrillard's point that we have all imagined the collapse of american empire; in a couple of different places in his work on US foreign policy Chomsky talks about the war mongers in Vietnam and what they said about the 'VC', hypothesising what they would have done if the VC had launched attacks in downtown New York.

Besides which, why should Baudrillard have to explain himself to you in any case? If we can't see through the oxymoronism of a 'War on Terrorism' we deserve to blown up in densely populated city centres like the sheep we are.