If you are like most people, you’re not sure what Postmodernism is. And if this were like most books on the subject, it probably wouldn’t tell you. Besides what a few grumpy critics claim, Postmodernism is not a bunch of meaningless intellectual mind games. On the contrary, it is a reaction to the most profound spiritual and philosophical crises of our time–the failure of the Enlightenment. Jim Powell takes the position that Postmodernism is a series of “maps” that help people find their way through a changing world. Postmodernism For Beginners features the thoughts of Foucault on power and knowledge, Jameson on mapping the postmodern, Baudrillard on the media, Harvey on time-space compression, Derrida on deconstruction and Deleuze and Guattari on rhizomes. The book also discusses postmodern artifacts such as Madonna, cyberpunk sci-fi, Buddhist ecology and teledildonics.

Jim Powell is Senior Fellow at a libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., with which he has been associated since 1988. He has also done work for the Manhattan Institute, the Institute for Humane Studies, Citizens for a Sound Economy, the National Right to Work Committee and Americans for Free Choice in Medicine.

Powell is an author on the history of liberty and its adversaries. His most recent books report findings about the unintended consequences of major presidential policies. He has written eight books and is perhaps best-known for FDR's Folly which has been praised by Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman and James M. Buchanan, Harvard historian David Landes and historian Thomas Fleming. Powell's books have been translated into Japanese. His book Greatest Emancipations, How Slavery Was Abolished In The West is scheduled to be published in June 2008 (Palgrave Macmillan).

He has contributed several hundred articles for an unusually broad array of publications. He has given talks internationally as well as at Harvard, Stanford and other universities across the United States.