Buy new:
$16.78
FREE delivery: Thursday, Feb 29 on orders over $35.00 shipped by Amazon.
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
List Price: $17.95 Details

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
Save: $1.17 (7%)
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
Return this item for free
  • Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges
  • Learn more about free returns.
FREE delivery Thursday, February 29 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or fastest delivery Monday, February 26. Order within 20 hrs 22 mins
In Stock
$$16.78 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$16.78
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime
FREE delivery Friday, March 1 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or fastest delivery Monday, February 26. Order within 20 hrs 22 mins
Used: Very Good | Details
Condition: Used: Very Good
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the authors

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Simulacra and Simulation (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism) Paperback – December 22, 1994

4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 1,204 ratings

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$16.78","priceAmount":16.78,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"16","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"78","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"ml0HC7Kaf5d4jeZRG4KFiv0BfZyeKyxI4Zg%2B35BAqinu3oGybDvxWuCBvO0iHn2pNFm81uqEjAMwp43X1SvnbsFNwUtdcCCjIbeY0LFFvJZI7AVSIoikQzMXlVa70pScEiZfYSe%2BNQg%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$13.69","priceAmount":13.69,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"13","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"69","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"ml0HC7Kaf5d4jeZRG4KFiv0BfZyeKyxIaUmtx%2F8pGl5KHDPPyNNjRQXwZiEX9EhMH%2B8UTFha6WSkaegsCge%2BLWPaVGO7VHlyIe%2FgISz6Z66yiTLHAocottUy0pSjIWNgdmF4TOocH7H0Z5W8k%2BR%2F7wQXwsuPORt77AUPhzsdS9j7VGsMUaGFjEhSHMNbjeEu","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons


Limited-Time Offer
3 Months FREE of Audible Premium Plus. Get this deal

Frequently bought together

$16.78
Get it as soon as Thursday, Feb 29
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
$10.00
Get it as soon as Friday, Mar 1
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
$12.99
Get it as soon as Thursday, Feb 29
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Moving away from the Marxist/Freudian approaches that had concerned him earlier, Baudrillard developed in this book a theory of contemporary culture that relies on displacing economic notions of cultural production with notions of cultural expenditure.

About the Author


Translator
Sheila Glaser is an editor at Artforum magazine.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Michigan Press; 33601st edition (December 22, 1994)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 164 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0472065211
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0472065219
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.7 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.8 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 1,204 ratings

Important information

To report an issue with this product or seller, click here.

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
1,204 global ratings
Bought the book.
5 Stars
Bought the book.
Seems legit as far as condition goes!
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2020
41 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2023
Customer image
5.0 out of 5 stars Bought the book.
Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2023
Seems legit as far as condition goes!
Images in this review
Customer image
Customer image
Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2023
3 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2022
7 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2018
Customer image
4.0 out of 5 stars somewhat like Orwell’s 1984 earlier
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2018
Jean Baudrillard was a French philosopher, a contributor to post-structuralism, along with the better-known Jacques Derrida. This bores anyone not deep into philosophy, so why dig into it? Because Simulacra and Simulation is mentioned in the movie, The Matrix, which is becoming a classic among people questioning all authenticity in an on-line world, and this book partly inspired it. The plot of The Matrix hinges on people being unaware that they are interacting with an alien, faux world, not reality, somewhat like Orwell’s 1984 earlier.

So if Simulacra and Simulation inspired The Matrix, what did the horse’s mouth say? Practically nothing; that’s the point. Baudrillard posited that we create meaning only by symbols referencing other symbols in a pattern that makes sense to us. None of it may represent reality, if there is such a thing. Consequently he is an expert turning logic in loops, citing referential contradictions, and doubling logic back on itself.

Simulacra and Simulation is an eye glazer. Its opening attributes to Ecclesiastes the observation that, “the simulacrum (a representation) never hides the truth – it is truth that hides the fact that there is none.” (I could not find this in Ecclesiastes, but suspect that Baudrillard refers to its refrain that of much study there is no end; all is vanity.)

Baudrillard harps on “hyperreality,” symbolism as in videos, whereby images seem more real than whatever they represent. It’s like seeing a video of a resort only to find that the real resort, if such really exists, is much less elegant than the video. He claims that hyperreality is the medium by which humans communicate, so it’s not new, but with modern media, we swim in an ocean of hyperreal nothingness.

Incidentally, Baudrillard did not mention The Matrix, but cited the 1996 British-Canadian movie, Crash, as one that approached seeing reality through the superficiality. The plot hinges on people being sexually aroused by fatal car crashes, either as victims or as witnesses. For Baudrillard, coupling sex and death in one emotional smash up invokes the full circle of life – but this combination didn’t particularly grip me.

I could not follow many of Baudrillard reversals of logic. The impression left, and perhaps the one he intended, is that post-modern, post-structuralism humans live mostly in our own simulations, subject to chaotic flips in meaning as discordant images flash by. You can see this in pop up ads and promos, all trying to out-gimmick the others. Is this a race to symbolic nowhere, an inane mashup of personal and corporate brands, never escaping Solomon’s conclusion in Ecclesiastes, that all is vanity?

Anticipating relief from this depressing thought, I started Baudrillard’s chapter on animals – nature – something other than Mobius strip loops of symbolic logic in media. Immediately, he dived into the mental health of animals in industrial feeding enclosures. “Democratic” access to food, so all animals will grow, screws up animal instinct for a pecking order. Confinement to tight spaces raises anxiety. Birds go nuts. So do other confined animals, whether farmed or merely observed, as in a zoo. Veterinarians have come to realize that animals in a non-natural environment are mentally distressed. They also get cancer, ulcers, and myocardial infarctions. Research vets think that turning them back into the wild once in a while might preserve their mental and physical health.

Baudrillard opines that everything that has happened to us is now replicated in confined animals. Ne notes that the ancients who sacrificed animals to gods must have valued them more than moderns. Sacrificing an objectified critter does not seem emotional enough to appease a god. Baudrillard suggests that sacrifice is at least a meaningful loss. Now we have relegated animals to detached roles of being food or pets or objects of experimentation and casual curiosity. How would humans in such roles react?

This suggests a line of study that has been emerging since Baudrillard’s death in 2007, increased depression in American youth. Some blame cell phones and social media, but the trend began long before those arrived according to an old study led by Jean Twenge. The figure from it below plots data over a 70-year span.

Speculation about this phenomenon keeps increasing. Youth are more self-centered, anti-social, anxious, and sad. And the phenomenon may not be confined to youth. So what is happening to us? What about the march toward a mobile, connected, and for some, affluent society might be a cause?

Maybe in all Baudrillard’s logical looping, he had a point. If we’re not living close to how nature designed us, we can become distressed. Many urban planners have sensed this ever since the 19th century, insisting that in their rush to riches, cities leave plenty of space for nature. These might do nature a little good, and us a great deal of good.
Images in this review
Customer image
Customer image
372 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2020
3 people found this helpful
Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
Christopher Dainton
5.0 out of 5 stars A challenging and life-altering read
Reviewed in Canada on May 25, 2022
4 people found this helpful
Report
Gustavo
5.0 out of 5 stars qualidade excelente e um ótima leitura
Reviewed in Brazil on September 22, 2021
Régis
5.0 out of 5 stars Très satisfait de mon achat
Reviewed in France on May 29, 2023
Bálint Mosóczi
5.0 out of 5 stars me likey
Reviewed in Germany on April 28, 2023
3 people found this helpful
Report
Virgilio F Ciudadano Jr
5.0 out of 5 stars il libro è arrivato.. grazie mille
Reviewed in Italy on January 4, 2023