Postmodern Theory

Rating:
Summary: An uncluttered examination of postmodernism
Review: I agree with one of the other reviewers of this book. If you don't have a knack for sorting out the often convoluted writing styles of postmodern theorists, this book would not be a good introductory text for the novice. That aside, the book successfully, for me, meandered through the postmodern junkpiles of many of the more well known postmodernists of the last 30 years: Lyotard, Jameson, Baudrillard, Foucault, Deleuze & Guattari, and Habermas, to name a few. I liked it that Best and Kellner's politics and goals were always unappolagetically evident. Their effort to systematically conceptualize each theorist's contribution to "postmodernism", and to explore the points at which different theorists cross path, depart in different directions, and/or altogether miss each other, is to hypothesize the possibility and need of a critical postmodernism - one that reflectively grounds and ungrounds itself in the traditions of critical theory and postmodernism. The translucencency of their analysis makes them not so much an objective observer of postmodernist writings, but situatuates them within the debates as participants. I believe that their review and arguments were cogent and progressive. It is a great book for exploring the primary texts you plan to hit.

Rating:
Summary: Best Introduction to Postmodernism BUT
Review: I remember my first encounter with postmodernism over 10 years ago when I started college and wished for a more gentle introduction. Pomo authors are notoriously difficult to understand not so much because their work is diffucult, but their texts are seldom self containted. To understand Foucault, you must know something about Nietszche, Heidigger, and to a smaller extent, Satre. In fact, to understand Foucault, you would have to read quite a bit of Foucault's canon because each text in each period of his writing is a collage of a much bigger picture.
I think this is the best introduction to postmodernism on the market. The authors discuss several seminal figures in pomo: Foucault, Baudrillard, Lyotard, etc. Their summaries and analysis are frequently good but at times flawed. This book is a good primer into pomo but I would not end with this book.

Rating:
Summary: Amateurish
Review: If you're a lazy college student looking to throw together a rudimentary paper that summarizes some aspects of postmodern theory, this is a fine book.

If you're a serious intellectual looking for a subtle interpretation of people like Foucault, Baudrillard, etc., don't look here. Best and Kellner do a fine job summarizing some aspects of these folks' work, but their analysis is often misleading. Kellner's background is in critical theory, and I don't really feel that he is qualified to write a book on postmodernism. I think this is pretty evident in his analysis, which often interprets people like Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari in ways that demonstrate very little understanding of the full force of their work.

Besides, this book is fairly skimpy. It's not exhaustive, it's not authoritative. It just summarizes and oversimplifies and misleads. It's maybe a good introduction, but that's about it. Best and Kellner aren't qualified to write this sort of book.