Power (The Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Vol. 3) [Paperback]

Michel Foucault (Author), James D. Faubion (Editor), Robert Hurley (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2001

The definitive edition of Foucault's articles, interviews, and seminars.

Few philosophers have had as strong an influence on the twentieth century as Michel Foucault. His work has affected the teaching of any number of disciplines and remains, twenty years after his death, critically important. This newly available edition is drawn from the complete collection of all of Foucault's courses, articles, and interviews, and brings his most important work to a new generation of readers.

Power (edited by James D. Faubion) draws together Foucault's contributions to what he saw as the still-underdeveloped practice of political analysis. It covers the domains Foucault helped to make part of the core agenda of Western political culture—medicine, psychiatry, the penal system, and sexuality.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The third volume of Foucault's miscellaneous writings--previous volumes covered Ethics (1997) and Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology (1998)--gathers lectures and prefaces, group discussions and interviews. Foucault made no claim to be a political theorist, yet the nature of power and the ways it is exercised were a central concern of much of his work. The volume's thirty pieces include historical discussions (The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century, About the Concept of the Dangerous Individual in Nineteenth-Century Legal Psychiatry) and theoretical analyses (Truth and Juridical Forms, Governmentality, The Subject and Power), as well as interviews and examples of Foucault's own political activism (Letter to Certain Leaders of the Left). Mary Carroll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) is the author of Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, The History of Sexuality, and many other books. James D. Faubion is a professor of anthropology at Rice University. He is the author of The Shadows and Lights of Waco and Modern Greek Lessons: A Primer in Historical Constructivism.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The; 1 edition (September 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565847091
• ISBN-13: 978-1565847095
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #107,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Movements > Deconstruction

More About the Author

One of the leading intellectuals of the twentieth century and the most prominent thinker in post-war France, Foucault's work influenced disciplines as diverse as history, sociology, philosophy, sociology and literary criticism.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of Rabinow's 'Foucault : Power' March 14, 2011

By Ryan S. Mease

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I suppose this work wins big for the simple volume of material presented. The large collection of essays, lectures and interviews really digs into every little corner of Foucault's thought on power, including its slow development toward ethics. The collection also contains more than a hundred pages on Foucault's political activities. Again, the introduction is lengthy, thorough and very great at summarizing a complex system of thought.

0 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars mind cuddling perverse incentives April 11, 2012

By Bruce P. Barten

Format:Paperback

It was possible for some people to tell dirty jokes when I was growing up, but the upper crust of ethical mentalities wanted to hide the women and children when ideas which would not be productive for loving relationships were revealed when some innocent mind tried to understand what a joke like:

LBJ! Pull out like your father should have!

was expressing on an emotional level as jokes became part of protests against American policy in Vietnam. Deep in this book, on considerations of subjectivity, there is a topic question:

What constitutes the specificity of power relations?

In a society in which officials react to secret circus stunt events, security is part of an instinct that tries to avoid panic. What happens "is not by nature the manifestation of consensus." Escalation to show resolve by calling on something called national honor is a perverse way to "seek the character proper to power relations in the violence that must have been its primitive form, its permanent secret, and last resort, that which in the final analysis appears as its real nature when it is forced to throw aside its mask and to show itself as it really is" when guys get sent to Vietnam and women and children think something strange is going on if anyone talks about it. Thank God for sex, so bisexuality can welcome out some other perverse incentive.