Condition of Postmodernism (Exploration of the Origins of Cultural Change)

Author: David Harvey, translated by Yan Jia
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-11-01
Features: Modernity Studies Translation Series. This book is the recent work of David Harvey, a prominent figure in Western neo-Marxism. It explores the roots of capitalism's cultural shift from modernity to postmodernity by examining the economic transformation of late 20th-century capitalist society, specifically the shift from large-scale assembly line production to small-scale, flexible production methods. The cultural manifestations of this transformation in capitalist production methods are the changes in people's experiences of time and space, a new round of "time-space compression," leading to a "pastiche society" in terms of cultural characteristics. The author argues that this change is merely a shift between capitalist production methods and culture, rather than the emergence of a completely new society.