If I were solely reviewing the eponymous essay then I’d give this book top marks, Baudrillard does an extraordinary job at imploding the micropolitics/physics of both Foucault and Deleuze-Guattari’s theories, making them careen out of their orbit like a spinning top (spatial metaphors abound in here relating to the kind of moves Baudrillard makes, but that labyrinthine ratcheting up of the stakes, fully affirming the premises and pushing them to their utmost limit, is basically the gist - creating a crisis within theory itself until it has no term or end to justify it and thus causing it to disappear). I really recommend that particular essay, and it stands as a great introduction to Baudrillard’s thought more generally - I hope Baudrillard’s truly evocative statement that power no longer exists, perhaps has never existed, unless it tries to cannibalise and disintegrate itself, has been taken up by others - there’s so much to be said on the matter, and it’s endlessly fascinating. Equally impressive is just how dense the collection of interviews at the end are in comparison to the main essay, I mean the exchanges are so pithy (read as curt), and the topics glossed over so numerous, that they alone took me absolutely ages to finish. They are likely worth stumbling through for the most ardent of Baudrillard afficionados, but I think I probably could have spent my time better elsewhere. Sparknotes version - read main essay, its a real goodun, and skim the interviews at the end (the topics discussed are outlined at the start of each interview so you can jump in at random points if you’re interested in such things as seduction, nuclear warfare, terrorism, dizziness/grace, Jesuits, the event, the media, “the game”, May ‘68 etc. etc.). ( )

En el momento en que se pretende que todo ha sido dicho, que no hay ya más secretos ni censuras, en el momento escogido para la apología, omitir la alabanza proveniente de la indiferencia, abordar un pensamiento demasiado bello par ser verdad, constituye, probablemente, un accidente...¿de donde proviene esta reserva ante lo admirable, sino de un rumor hostil a la conjuración de la aquiescencia y de la exigencia de cualquier otro discurso posible?