Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard

Simulacra and Simulation is Jean Baudrillard’s major early work on postmodern culture. In this book, he moves beyond Marxist and Freudian ideas to propose a new theory where culture is no longer about producing meaning but about expenditure—the endless circulation of signs. Baudrillard introduces the key concepts of simulacra (copies with no original) and simulation, which explain how modern media reproduces images and realities until the line between truth and representation disappears. This work reshapes cultural theory by offering a new form of materialism and by redefining how the body and identity function in a world dominated by media and mass reproduction.