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Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison Paperback – Abridged, April 25, 1995

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,279 ratings

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A brilliant work from the most influential philosopher since Sartre.

In this indispensable work, a brilliant thinker suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner's body to his soul.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michel Foucault was born in Poitiers, France, in 1926. He lecturerd in universities throughout the world; served as director at the Institut Francais in Hamburg, Germany and at the Institut de Philosophi at the Faculte des Lettres in the University of Clermont-Ferrand, France; and wrote frequently for French newspapers and reviews. At the time of his death in 1984, he held a chair at France's most prestigious institutions, the College de France.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage Books; 2nd edition (April 25, 1995)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 333 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0679752552
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679752554
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.17 x 0.73 x 7.99 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,279 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
1,279 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the insights wonderful, rewarding, and interesting. They describe the book as great, essential, and satisfactory. Readers also mention that the pacing is entertaining and loveable. Opinions are mixed on the reading pace, with some finding it direct and concise, while others say it's a monumental struggle to read.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

20 customers mention "Insight"20 positive0 negative

Customers find the insights wonderful, rewarding, and thought-provoking. They describe the book as an important piece of literature. Readers also mention it's relevant and life-changing.

"It's an interesting book...." Read more

"...Ingenious, important but ultimately pernicious, in my opinion. Still an incredibly rewarding work of modern philosophy. Highly recommended." Read more

"...Foucault is amazing, essential, mind expanding; but dense. I had to learn how to 'read' him first...." Read more

"...] As a school administrator, Foucault’s book brings great insight in discipline at school, and how we must reevaluate how we handle students, so we..." Read more

17 customers mention "Readability"17 positive0 negative

Customers find the book great, essential, and satisfying. They say it's a remarkable tour-de-force of the evolving role of crime.

"...It's all rather disappointing in my eyes. The book itself is an interesting read, but Foucault has a tendency of making me rather depressed when I..." Read more

"Bought for a college class, good book." Read more

"...want to broaden your perspectives on crime and punishment this book is an amazing start." Read more

"...the historical accuracy of this work, it is nonetheless a remarkable tour-de-force of the evolving role of punishment in society since the times of..." Read more

5 customers mention "Pacing"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's pacing amazing, essential, and entertaining.

"...Audiobooks are the only way I can absorb Foucault. Foucault is amazing, essential, mind expanding; but dense. I had to learn how to 'read' him first...." Read more

"Yes, its a masterpiece. Wonderful material. Thought-provoking.It's also a monumental struggle to read. How's that?..." Read more

"Very cheap and elegant, so loveable, and I bought it for my girlfriend and she loves me for it, it looks so great : and for more visit my website,..." Read more

"awesome" Read more

7 customers mention "Reading pace"3 positive4 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the reading pace of the book. Some mention the writing style is direct and concise, while others say it's a monumental struggle to read.

"...A minor critique is that the reading is a little dry. Neither Foucault nor his translator were able to spice things up enough...." Read more

"...The narrative structure is also excellent, in the sense that it leads a reader through the history of incarceration and punishment..." Read more

"...'s a fairly difficult read due to its being academic and not intended for a casual reader, if you read Discipline and Punish it will change the way..." Read more

"incredibly relevant and well written! it’s a must read for anyone interested in how society was structured from late medieval to current day." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2019
It's an interesting book. The type of one that makes one realize we are worse off then ever if people would bother reading these things or even considering these thing. Quotes like these one are worth paying attention too, its a good example of how the elite view the masses. I found this interesting pg. 102-103 for the interested reader.

"When you have thus formed the CHAIN OF IDEAS IN THE HEADS OF YOUR CITIZENS, you will then be able to PRIDE YOURSELVES ON GUIDING THEM AND BEING THEIR MASTERS. A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas; it is at the stable point of reason that he secures the end of the chain; this link is all the stronger in what we do not know of what it is made and we believe it to be our own work; despair and time eat away the bonds of iron and steel; but they are powerless against the habitual union of ideas; they can only tighten it still more; and on the soft fibers of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the soundest of Empires (103) More or less nothing is true and everything is permitted appears to be the mindset. Quotes like these one were written centuries before and I can't imagine what's been dreamed up, accept I suspect people will continue moving in the one direction, not questioning anything, and just following as usual. Throw technology into the mix and you can be responsible for dooming future generations permanently, probably at the higher levels it becomes sillier, why would they believe in something that they themselves made up, an idea that came from their own head, to control others.

It's quotes like these that show more of the secret and oh so wonderful aspects of the human race. It's all rather disappointing in my eyes. The book itself is an interesting read, but Foucault has a tendency of making me rather depressed when I read his work. However, his goal in a Nietzschean way was to use his own works to transform himself. So good read and he's rather outdated now, we've had another 60+ years in a way to continue the process of control we can see it 10X amplified. Until people stop believing in ideas or following along there won't be any change. It would be more like an exodus, sillier when educated men most of them knowing metaphysics sat down and made up a Declaration of Independence, not that anyone knows the foundations or what it was taken from or built upon, again all ideas. I think the end goal is a genetically bred drone class to an elite in a technological controlled world, worse then the Panopticon or more of a communal telepathic world where everyone, thinks, acts, and does the same thing, but still just as controlled.

So a good book for the interested reader willing to uncover more.
19 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2022
It’s a curious fact, but if you want to understand some of today’s most controversial issues, you have to read the works of a French philosopher who died in 1984.

That philosopher is of course Michel Foucault. His most influential works were genealogies of phenomena as diverse as modern sexuality, clinics and prisons.

The key to understanding him is to understand what Foucault meant by a genealogy. It was not a history or even a history of ideas. It was instead how a body of knowledge, or science, had developed and been used to seize and wield power. Explicitly denying the fact that objective sciences of humanity were possible, he saw psychology, criminology and even to an extent physiology as merely tools of power.

That’s why he begins Discipline and Punish with a subject as seemingly esoteric as the classical theory that any crime was an attack on the king’s metaphorical body. Thus, he describes the elaborate public ritual where redress was made on the prisoner’s physical body.

What Foucault wants is to convince the reader that this archaic form of punishment was rational to the men of that day. By this, he can shake from the reader’s head any idea that the modern system of prisons is any more rational than this was.

It’s an ingenious and influential work—although in my opinion too influential. While I cannot argue with Foucault’s genealogy—nobody has read more or could trace lineages better than he—I will point out that, after destroying the rationale for imprisonment, he puts nothing in its place. Perhaps, it’s unfair to demand that he should have single-handedly come up with his own theory of retributive justice, but for those of us who have to live in this world, it’s rather discomfiting to see prisons torn down and nothing erected in their place.

Ingenious, important but ultimately pernicious, in my opinion. Still an incredibly rewarding work of modern philosophy. Highly recommended.
25 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2024
Bought for a college class, good book.
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2016
Michel Foucault is the writer who has had the strongest influence on me in the last 10 years. Audiobooks are the only way I can absorb Foucault. Foucault is amazing, essential, mind expanding; but dense. I had to learn how to 'read' him first. My partner taught me that rather than reading a passage, understanding it fully, moving on to the next in a linear sequence; with him its better to read in waves, revisiting, letting words wash over a couple of times. Words gather meaning with him incrementally, nuance is built in layers as he goes from positing a statement, to illustrating it in plain speak, to explaining it through a historic example, to another example and another etc, finally leaving you with a very 3 dimensional idea of a concept, as its meaning has been 'triangulated' from many angles.

Translating him cannot be easy. The 4 stars, is because i think he can be translated simpler for today.
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Richard Elendu
5.0 out of 5 stars Exactly what I expected
Reviewed in Canada on January 30, 2022
Exactly what I expected
A.
2.0 out of 5 stars Baskı kalitesi düşük fiyat yüksek.
Reviewed in Turkey on April 19, 2024
Bu ebatlarda ve baskı kalitesindeki bir kitap için fiyatı yüksekti.
Becky H
5.0 out of 5 stars Sehr informativ
Reviewed in Germany on July 16, 2023
Wunderschönes Cover und ein sehr interessantes Buch! Sowhol als private Lektüre als auch für die Uni sehr bereichernd gewesen. Es gibt philosophische, soziologische, historische und auch architektonische Einblicke in das System!
F
4.0 out of 5 stars Possibly Foucault's best work.
Reviewed in Italy on August 2, 2023
Recommended.
Marietta
5.0 out of 5 stars Need quotes for Degree/Masters on witchcraft? You need this.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 15, 2021
I got this (Kindle version) to help with information for my Postgrad Masters. I’m doing Visual Arts/Fine Art and my subject is Witchcraft and looking specifically at the Witch trials of the 1600’s. Skip the parts about prisons and get to the punishments and tortures, which are particularly relevant to how witches were treated to get confessions and their subsequent mode of death. I’m not even half way through and have so many great quotes.