In The Illusions of Postmodernism, Terry Eagleton takes aim at postmodern theory at the point where it had become less an insurgency than a house style.
He is wildly suspicious of grand narratives, allergic to totality, fond of surfaces, fragments, plurality, identity, irony, and pursues the conclusion that history had perhaps had a bit too much to drink and should be asked to leave. Eagleton’s central argument is not that postmodernism has nothing to offer, but that its useful critiques of certainty, authority and universalism begin to curdle when they lose sight of material history, political struggle, class, suffering, and power.
The book moves through postmodernism’s treatment of subjects, histories, ethics, politics and culture, arguing that a world of dispersed identities and local truths is still very much shaped by capitalism, institutions, violence, inequality and the dull old machinery of domination. Eagleton is sharpest when he is needling the contradiction between postmodernism’s hostility to totalising explanation and its own strangely confident claims about the impossibility of totality. Tiny theoretical snake eating its own laminated conference lanyard.
Eagleton writes with more bite than most theory people are legally permitted to possess, so it’s readable without being soft. A useful, argumentative little grenade.
Blackwell paperback edition, first published 1996 and reprinted 1997 and 1998. Very good used condition overall, with light cover wear and minor handling marks; internally clean.
