The postmodern condition: a report on knowledge

Blurb

The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge is a 1979 book by Jean-François Lyotard, in which he analyzes the notion of knowledge in postmodern society as the end of 'grand narratives' or metanarratives, which he considers a quintessential feature of modernity. The book introduced the term 'postmodernism', which was previously only used by art critics, into philosophy, with the following quotation: "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives".
Short but influential, the book was originally written as a report on the influence of technology in exact sciences, commissioned by the Conseil des universités du Québec. Lyotard later admitted that he had a 'less than limited' knowledge of the science he was to write about, and to compensate for this knowledge, he 'made stories up' and referred to a number of books that he hadn't actually read. In retrospect, he called it 'a parody' and 'simply the worst of all my books'.