Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-1998) was Professor of Philosophy at several institutes of higher learning in Paris and at the University of California at Irvine. A member of the radical group Socialisme ou Barbarie, he later went on to become one of the founding figures of postmodernism with his work The Postmodern Condition.

Libidinal Economy, a major work of modern Continental philosophy in its own right, is regarded as the most important response to Deleuze and Guattari's groundbreaking work. Having broken from Marxism, Lyotard presents an almost nihilistic attack on the philosophies of desire in a polemical and compelling work.

Translated by Ian Hamilton Grant