About the book: 2015 / In the film "The Matrix" one of its characters (Neo) reads a book by the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. With the help of this book, Neo tries to understand where reality is and where the matrix of the real world is. The attention of the creators of this film to the works of Baudrillard is not accidental: he was called the “guru” of postmodernism, he introduced the concept of hyperreality (“matrix”) to designate the processes occurring in the world. According to Baudrillard, the Western world has lost its sense of reality, it is moving towards the Apocalypse, when the last bastion becomes death - any power and economy is based on it in our time. Another French philosopher, Emile Michel Cioran, agrees with Baudrillard that European civilization is going through a deep crisis, but tries to joke on the edge of the abyss. With dark humor, Sioran assesses the present and future of Europe, society, European people. The book presented to your attention contains the most significant works of these two outstanding thinkers of the 20th century.