The Essential Foucault: Selections fron the Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984 [Paperback]

Michel Foucault (Author), Paul Rabinow (Editor), Nikolas Rose (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 2003 | ISBN-10: 1565848012 | ISBN-13: 978-1565848016

The latest book in The New Press's Essential series collects key texts from the influential French philosopher.

Few philosophers have had as significant an impact on contemporary thought as Michel Foucault. His complete uncollected writings, under the title Dits et écrits, were published in French in 1994 and in a three-volume series from The New Press that brought the most important of these works—courses, articles, and interviews, many of them translated into English for the first time—to American readers. Now, Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose have collected the best pieces from the three-volume set into a one-volume anthology.

The Essential Foucault, which features a new and provocative introduction by Rabinow and Rose, is certain to become the standard text for all those interested in a comprehensive overview of Foucault's thought.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was one of the most influential philosophers of the past century. He held a chair in the History of Systems of Thought at the Collège de France and lectured at universities throughout the world. His books include Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, The Order of Things, and The History of Sexuality. Paul Rabinow is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. His previous books include French DNA and French Modern. Nikolas Rose is a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics. His most recent book is Powers of Freedom.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: The New Press (August 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565848012
• ISBN-13: 978-1565848016
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #191,386 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not so essential, October 12, 2010

By 

Larry Bagina (manhattan) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Essential Foucault: Selections fron the Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984 (Paperback)

While this book exposes the reader to some of Foucault's main ideas it does so in a non organized fashion, which could be attributed to the fact that a substantial part of the book is comprised of interviews Foucault has given.

While this interview format makes for interesting material it also has the negative side of lacking a structure, so at one point he will be talking about phenomenology, then will jump to Stoic asceticism, Marxism, Post-structuralism, political left in France and then go back to phenomenology. Even though it is done in a interconnected and logical fashion, I find that the reader who has not been exposed to Foucault's other books will find himself lost most of the time.

Having said that I would say the title of the book is misleading in the sense that it does not present the essential themes of Foucault, but instead works as a nice explanatory companion for those who have already read some of his books and have here the opportunity of Foucault himself elaborating on some of his main themes.

0 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Reality is real. Foucault is not., April 19, 2011

By 

Rupert Jenkins - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Essential Foucault: Selections fron the Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984 (Paperback)

For starters, the French to English translation is shoddy; the authors take serious literary license to dumb the text down the intelligence level of American college freshman. More importantly, and primarily, my criticism lies with the works published in this volume; they are of inconsequential importance. Most of these works are that of interviews, collected from various magazines. The content of these interviews reveals the depths that Foucault grounds himself in; that is to say; there is no ground. The ground is a social construction. There is no base. There is no reality. Everything is interpretive and functional, for (guess who?); those who exercise power. Very tiring. Those who wish to peruse the works of a true philosopher should do a search for Milton Friedman.