<DIV></DIV> <DIV> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none">In <I>Carnival and Cannibal</I>, distinguished French philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929&#8211;2007) reflects on many of his most significant ideas concerning the significance of language and the relationship between the technological and the social.</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; In this, one of his final works, Baudrillard identifies two fatal modes in which the world is currently engaged: the carnival and the cannibal, arguing essentially that contemporary society is transfixed by the spectacle of its own cultural creation and self-consumption. Revisiting his most important concepts&#8212;such as reversibility, simulation, parody, and symbolic exchange&#8212;through the exploration of these two dominant modes, Baudrillard delivers a blistering diagnosis of globalization, as inflicted on the world by the richer nations.</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; In the companion essay, &#8220;Ventriloquous Evil,&#8221; Baudrillard meditates on our present system of global technological and ideological domination which has eradicated human accountability. Baudrillard argues that &#8220;this entire electronic, cybernetic revolution is perhaps merely a piece of animal cunning that humanity has found in order to escape itself.&#8221; </P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; A brilliant synthesis of some of Baudrillard&#8217;s most remarkable and influential ideas, <I>Carnival and Cannibal</I> is a timely and formidable exploration of a humanity that has cannibalized the human.</P></DIV>