Since de Tocqueville, French thinkers have been fascinated with America. But when it comes to mysterious paradoxes and lyrical complexity no French intellectual matches Jean Baudrillard in contemplating the New World - [He] has become a sharp-shooting Lone Ranger of the post-Marxist left.A" New York Times

JEAN BAUDRILLARD (1929-2007) began teaching sociology at the Universite de Paris-X in 1966. He retired from academia in 1987 to write books and travel until his death in 2007. His many works include The Transparency of Evil, The System of Objects, The Perfect Crime, and The Spirit of Terrorism, all from Verso.