This book documents Baudrillard's tempestuous encounters with semiology and structuralism. Genosko illuminates in detail his efforts to destroy structural analyses from the inside by setting signification ablaze with his concept of symbolic exchange. Simultaneously, the book shows that Baudrillard's project to go beyond signification is fraught with difficulties which return him to a semiotic scene saturated with all kinds of signs.

Through this illumination, Baudrillard's work is situated in the broad spectrum of European and American semiotic traditions. His key concept of symbolic exchange is critically examined and is traced through its maturation and development over some thirty years of theorizing.

1. Also examined are Baudrillard's engagements with and debts to French theatre and literature with reference to Antonin Artaud, Alfred Jarry and Victor Segalen. Discussion of Baudrillard's relation to the thought of Deleuze, Guattari, Lacan, de Certeau and Lyotard casts light on many neglected features of his work.