This book mainly reads the three works of early Baudrillard, and challenges the current research findings on his philosophical journey. Zhang Yibing also reads Baudrillard's other works to fully situate him theoretically. He asserts that Baudrillard's texts cannot be classified as postmodernist or neo-Marxist in any period. Zhang belongs to the third generation of Marxist philosophers in China and is renowned for his textological researches, having developed a unique reading methodology. Since the end of 1960s, Baudrillard wrote three important works: For a Critique of Political Economy of...

This book prefers a hard polemic on Baudrillard's post-modern turn, and deals in a direct and frontal debate against refutations claimed by early (young) Baudrillard to historical materialism and his deconstruction of Marxian theory of labor value. Making advantage of the brand-new method of Marxist context constitution, the author makes a critical and detailed reading of Youth Baudrillard's three most important academic books: For a Critique of Political Economy of Signs, The Mirror of Production and Symbolic Exchange and Death. And he makes a deep analysis on the academic and thinking basis...