Jean Baudrillard's work has enraged and baffled critics and commentators in the English speaking world for over twenty years. Has he gone beyond a joke? Or do his writings on the contemporary world and its significance offer us revelatory insights?One thing is certain: Baudrillard is neither an easy writer nor a soft target. Revenge of the Crystal supplies a corrective to those who would dismiss his work as irrelevant - and a welcome introduction to those who are coming to his work for the first time. It includes substantial translations of his major writings from the 1960s through to his critiques of consumption and Marxism in the 1970s, and his more speculative pronouncements in the 1980s on sexuality, the nature of politics and the effects of the 'image machine' on our imaginations and systems of meaning.