The Condition of Postmodernity

The Condition of Postmodernity
By David Harvey (1990)

Synopsis: Asks: What is postmodernism, and are we indeed living in a postmodern age? His overall argument is that postmodernism builds on ideas of modernism (in its reaction to change, chaos, ephemerality, and time-space compression), but whereas modernism was all about the grand overarching plan that would make everything better, postmodernism represents the death of the grand narrative. Postmodernism instead embraces chaos and fragmentation and collage (and embraces the signifier rather than the signified), and was aided by the disembodied nature of capitalism itself. Though he celebrates the multiplicity of postmodernism, Harvey is afraid it may cause each specific group to remain in their own little ghettos, and a focus on surface and difference might lead to larger political inertia or disengagement from bigger picture (117-118). The late 1960s brought on a crisis of overaccumulation, as capitalism is a fetishizer and creator of new needs and wants.

Interesting Specifics:

Says postmodernism arose between 1968-72 as a result of the anti-modern movement of the 1960s (38).
1914 marks the rise of Fordism and ushering in of new way of life obsessed with mass production and functionalism.
Jefferson's homesteading project helped spatially set-up Enlightenment ideal in a utopian way (255-57).
Talks about the rise of image consultants as a fairly postmodern phenomenon (288).
Time-space compression (beginning around 1910 he says) is central to both modernism and postmodernism.