The History of Sexuality, Volume !: An Introduction by Michel Foucault, is this major French thinker's last work, and since so many others have given a good sense of what the book is about, I will be brief. My only demur to their opinions is that while this may be his most popular book, it is not his best, or his most influential among scholars.
It is very important to note that this is not a history of sex. It is not even a history of talking about sex. It is a history of the way in which talking about sex was structured over the last three hundred years, his primary thesis being that contrary to popular belief, the Victorian era, roughly between 1835 and 1903, was NOT a period where talk about sex was repressed. To be sure, Freud and the other psychoanalysts made major influences in how we talk about sexuality, but Freud was as much a milestone as it was a cause of the change. The book is devoted to two critical shifts in attitudes about sex. The first was from the onset of legislation about sex early in the industrial age, to the formation of sexual archetypes or "types of sexuality". The second major shift, which contributed to the first, was the simultaneous change in the value put on human life. This was brought about by agricultural advances which abolished famine in many countries, and the advance in medicine which showed that by attending to good practices, one can substantially improve and lengthen one's life. This trend was embraced by governments, which discovered the need for lots of people to keep the new industries running.
Make no mistake. Foucault is difficult to read, but you have the assurance of those who have gone before that the journey is worth the effort. One nice perk of reading thie book is that you get a chance to read sn iportant contemporary thinker who is totally imbued with Nietzschean concepts. One can almost hear Nietzsche talking over Foucault's shoulder. Unforturnately, Foucault does not have Nietxaxhe's flair for writing sparkling prose.
I will warn you that the editor of this translation would have done us a favor by providing footnotes to explain some of Foucault's references, such as the fact that "The Plumed Serpent" was written by D. H. Laurance and that Jean Martin Charcot was the founder of scientific neurology, and Sigmund Freud's teacher at the Paris Saltpetraire hospital. Keep your Wikipedia open to look this stuff up as you read.
To soften the blow of Foucault's rather dense beginning, I suggest you read the last chapter first. It explains what it is that Foucault is all about.
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