The deconstruction bombshell that rocked the Anglophone world. Jacques Derrida’s revolutionary approach to phenomenology, psychoanalysis, structuralism, linguistics, and indeed the entire European tradition of philosophy―called deconstruction―changed the face of criticism. It provoked a questioning of philosophy, literature, and the human sciences that these disciplines would have previously considered improper. Forty years after Of Grammatology first appeared in English, Derrida still ignites controversy, thanks in part to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s careful translation, which attempted to capture the richness and complexity of the original. This fortieth anniversary edition, where a mature Spivak retranslates with greater awareness of Derrida’s legacy, also includes a new afterword by her which supplements her influential original preface. Judith Butler has added an introduction. All references in the work have been updated. One of contemporary criticism’s most indispensable works, Of Grammatology is made even more accessible and usable by this new release. One of contemporary criticism’s most indispensable works, Of Grammatology is made even more accessible and usable by this new release. ― About Education We should be grateful to have this distinguished book in our hands. Very lucid and extremely useful. ― New York Review of Books There is cause for rejoicing in the translation of De la grammatologie . ― New Republic Reading Derrida was the shock of a decentering, the critical shift into a world of the interminable movement of difference, the crisis of any closure. Of Grammatology was and remains the most tightly worked . . . and exemplary . . . demonstration of the science of this shift and crisis. ― Canto The tool-kit for anyone who wants to empty the 'presence' out of any text he has taken a dislike to. A handy arsenal of deconstructive tools are to be found in its pages, and the technique, once learnt, is as simple, and as destructive, as leaving a bomb in a brown paper bag outside (or inside) a pub. ― Notes and Queries One of the major works in the development of contemporary criticism and philosophy. ―J. Hillis Miller, Yale University "We should be grateful to have this distinguished book in our hands. Very lucid and extremely useful." "There is cause for rejoicing in the translation of De la grammatologie ." "Reading Derrida was the shock of a decentering, the critical shift into a world of the interminable movement of difference, the crisis of any closure. Of Grammatology was and remains the most tightly worked... and exemplary... demonstration of the science of this shift and crisis." "The tool-kit for anyone who wants to empty the 'presence' out of any text he has taken a dislike to. A handy arsenal of deconstructive tools are to be found in its pages, and the technique, once learnt, is as simple, and as destructive, as leaving a bomb in a brown paper bag outside (or inside) a pub." "One of the major works in the development of contemporary criticism and philosophy." -- J. Hillis Miller, Yale University The deconstruction bombshell that rocked the Anglophone world. Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. His books include Writing and Difference, Margins of Philosophy, Dissemination, and Specters of Marx . Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is University Professor at Columbia University. Judith Butler is the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School.