SOURCE: “The Illusions of Postmodernism,” in Monthly Review, Vol. 49, No. 5, October, 1997, pp. 58-61.

In the following review, Mooers offers positive assessment of The Illusions of Postmodernism.

A grammatically-correct friend explained to me recently that when terms like “Post-Modernism” are written as “Postmodernism” it represents the linguistic equivalent of coming of age. Which, like so many apparently momentous passages in life, may be full of sound and fury, but in the end signify very little. Nevertheless, as Terry Eagleton points out in the preface to this very clever and readable book, “Part of the power of postmodernism is that it exists, whereas how true this is of socialism these days is rather more debateable. Pace Hegel, it would seem at present that what is real is irrational, and what is rational is unreal.”

The Illusions of Postmodernism sets out to challenge not so much the heavy hitters of the...