Jim Powell's Derrida For Beginners is the clearest explanation of Derrida and deconstruction presently available in our solar system. Powell guides us through blindingly obscure texts like Of Grammatology (Derrida's deconstruction of Saussure, Lévi Strauss, and Rousseau), "Différance" (his essay on language and life), Dissemination (his dismantling of Plato, his rap on Mallarmé), and Derrida's other masterpieces (the mere titles can make strong men tremble in terror - Signéponge/Signsponge and Specters of Marx.)Readers will learn the coolest Derridian buzzwords (e.g., intertextuality, binary oppositions, hymen, sous rature, phallogocentrism), the high-and-low lights of deconstruction's history (including the DeMan controversy), and the various criticisms of Derrida and deconstruction, including Camille Paglia's objection that America, the rock-n-roll nation, isn't formal enough to need deconstruction. The master, however, begs to disagree:"America is Deconstruction" -Jacques Derrida