The Post-Modern Reader

by Charles Jencks (Editor)

Post-Modernism has been debated, attacked and defended for over three decades. It is, however, not just a fashion or style but part of a greater movement in all areas of culture, and one which stubbornly persists like its parent, Modernism. The Post-Modern Reader is a seminal anthology that presents this trend in all its diversity, as a convergence in architecture and literature, sociology and cultural theory, feminism and theology, science and economics. For this new edition, editor Charles Jencks, has provided an entirely new definitive introductory essay ‘What then is Post-Modernism?' that reflects on the movement's coming of age. The book also encompasses essential classic texts on the subject by John Barth, Umberto Eco, David Harvey, Jane Jacobs, Jean-François Lyotard and Robert Venturi, while incorporating new inclusions by Felipe Fernández-Armesto, John Gray, Ihab Hassan and Anatole Kaletsky. Each text is introduced and contextualised for the reader with a new short introductory passage.

A new edition of a classic anthology of 26 texts covering the full gamut of Post-Modern thought from architecture and literature to economics and theology. The reader includes key texts by John Barth, Umberto Eco, David Harvey, Jane Jacobs, Jean-François Lyotard and Robert Venturi. A book edited by the most influential figure behind the Post-Modern movement - Charles Jencks. A timely and informative publication for students that captures the renewed interest in Post-Modernism.

Genres: Architecture, Philosophy

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Charles Alexander Jencks (born 21 June 1939) is an American architecture theorist and critic, landscape architect and designer. His books on the history and criticism of modernism and postmodernism are widely read in architectural circles. He studied under the influential architectural historians Sigfried Giedion and Reyner Banham. Jencks now lives in Scotland where he designs landscape sculpture.

Reviews

[Elitsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting point of view about po-mo being not the next step of mo but rather an equal yet different movement. The book looks at that not only in architectural, but rather in universal context.