In his most comprehensive and accessible work, Fredric Jameson argues that postmodernism is a cultural response to recent systemic changes in global capitalism. He attempts to define a term that has become so multi-meaning that it has lost all historical significance. He surveys the cultural landscape of postmodernity, assessing the political possibilities of the new term and examining the development of postmodernism in a variety of fields - from market ideology to architecture, from painting to installations, from video art and high literature to deconstruction. Finally, Jameson reassesses the concept of postmodernism in light of postmodern critiques of totalization and historical narratives - from the notion of decadence to small-group dynamics, from religious fundamentalism to science fiction - addressing the nature of contemporary cultural criticism and the possibilities of cognitive mapping in the current multinational world system....