Chapter 9 - The New McWorld Order

Summary

This chapter explores the relationship between the transformations in global capitalism that were taking place at the end of the twentieth century and the rise of postmodernism as, in the words of Fredric Jameson, the ‘cultural logic’ of those transformations. It examines the argument that this postmodern culture of transnational corporatism challenged modern distinctions between economics and politics, and even threatened the sovereignty of the nation-state. Taking three prominent accounts of postmodern culture (by Fredric Jameson, Jean Baudrillard and Jean-François Lyotard) as its central focus, the chapter introduces the key theoretical categories of each and, by reading these in relation to influential literary texts from the period, examines how both theoretical and literary writing responded to and shaped the new economic and political climates of those decades.