germinal! ( )

I found this an easier read than Foucault's other work. It's a fascinating look at the history of our culture's understanding and treatment of madness, as well the changing relationship we've had with the state of believed madness. And of course, it's wonderfully written with humor as an added bonus. ( )

Reviewed here.

A brilliant, innovative and mendacious history. ( )

A history of what society calls madness.

One of the most important works of political and social theory of the late twentieth century. ( )

Taken from Foucault's larger work The History Of Madness, this book deals with Foucault's account of the ideas, practices, insitutions, art and literature relating to madness from the end of the Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, onwards through the 'Classical Age' of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries ending in the modern age, with what Foucault terms the 'birth of the asylum'.

As this is only an abridged version it is useful to read in order to get the essence of Foucault's argument, but I would seriously recommend reading The History Of Madness in its entirety if you are interested in this aspect of Foucault's work. The only downside is the price tag, compared to this significantly cheaper book. ( )

Foucault employs an exacting and yet artistic methodology of historical-sociological interpretation of the history of madness in the age of reason. In this impressive work, he discovers that the origin of insanity, of psychological confinement, corresponds with the diminution of leprosy in Europe, and that the sectors of institutional power sought to find another means of normalization and social control through the imprisonment, and public degradation of the mentally ill, the poor, and the homeless. This power dynamic later manifests itself in the form of absolute confinement and normalcy, in which the insane were subjected to physiological experimentation, which marks an apparent disregard for Descartes' mind-body distinction. Foucault skillfully outlines the means of psychological repair through the exploration of the balancing of the four humors, to the revealing of insanity's non-being and non-reason through its release to the ultimate freedom of nature. Foucault then examines the transition of psychology from the real of biological-intellectual non-reason, to the imposition of moral and religious absolutism and the birth of the asylum, and finally to the (perhaps salvation) of Freud and psychoanalysis, in which the patient-doctor relationship is recreated as a mode of observation, not judgment or condescension, "he made it the Mirror in which madness, in an almost motionless movement, clings to and casts off itself" (pg. 278). Foucault's Madness and Civilization represents an important breakthrough in the field of post-modern philosophy; it is truly an excellent work of scholarship and profound insight.

-As a side note, this edition appears to be an incomplete version of Foucault's book, as it contains nothing on Descartes and his methodoligical relation between madness and doubt raised in the Meditations. This section would later be the focus of Derrida's criticism in his lecture 'Cogito and the History of Madness,' published in 'Writing and Difference,'which caused a rift between the two thinkers. The Vintage edition appears to be only one half of Foucault's original book. The complete version of the text is going to be published by Routledge later this year, so hold off on this one. ( )