Jean Baudrillard

Simulacra and Simulation argues that copies have replaced the things they once copied, and that the map now precedes the territory rather than describing it. Baudrillard taught sociology at Nanterre and wrote a short book titled The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, which is about coverage rather than a denial that people died. He became briefly famous in English when the Wachowskis put his book on screen in The Matrix and asked him to advise on the sequels. He refused, and said the film had misread him: it treats the illusion as something a person can wake up from. He died in Paris in 2007.