Crucial work in Foucault's oeuvre

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	• Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison Michel Foucault Vintage, 1995 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 40 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Ready for a prison escape?

Get ready for a new way of looking at the prison system and the history background that precedes it. This is a critical study of the origins of the prison system and the penalization of criminals. Not an easy read by no means, but a truely provacative thought generating means of looking at the discipline and the prison system of Britian.

Power is Knowledge

Foucault's epistemology is clear - knowledge develops from power. This is an interesting genealogy of the penal system but, an analytical and critical depiction of an observed social phenomenom, it isn't. Foucault's sociology of the body is quite an intriguing sidetrack in his historical account of the decentralization of power. Despite the potential for being a great piece of social analysis, Foucault falls short in Discipline and Punish by insisting on remaining detached from the phenomenom about which he writes. On the bright side, those with the appropriate sensibilities will be fascinated by some thrillingly macabre depicitions of old forms of punishment.

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An absolute classic

Foucault's masterpiece once again reveals the inadequacy inherent in Hegelian homogeneous progressive histories. Foucault invites us to the annals of overlooked spaces of knowledge; schools, prisons, mental hospitals,.. It is a work that entices us to question the philosphy of punishment and how laws are part of the network of power that creates knowledge which in turn bestows the power to regulate, discipine and reproduce reality. And although Foucault does not explicity voice it, capitalism once again is the impetus behind the invention of new forms of rationality and knowledge. The book is an example of a genological rendering of history, which situates discourse on stage of human change which is not always to the best.

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Crucial work in Foucault's oeuvre

Following "L'archeologie du savoir" ("The Archaeology of Knowledge") Foucault's work increasingly focused on the analysis of social institutions. "Surveiller et punir" ("Discipline and Punish") was critically acclaimed even by mainstream historians and is probably his best-received book - today it has the widest readership of all his books because it's actually assigned reading in universities now. Crucial to an understanding of his work as a whole. At this point Foucault had truly become an "engaged" philosopher and this is the beginning of "the later Foucault", the activist and social critic.

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Becomes riveting around page 220

Foucault traces the history of the prison system and the fundamental change in punishment that took place in the seventeenth century from retributive punishment of criminals, 'supplice,' to the rehabilitation of delinquents. Foucault is concerned with this change as it demonstrates something pervasive and not just exclusive to the prison system--normalization, or socialization. All the silly little things done in schools, for instance, you will see in quite a different light after reading this book. It's one of those books that--well, at the risk of sounding supremely cornball, will open your mind. All mind-opening books are painful, though, and this is definitely a painful read, mainly thanks to Foucault's _terrible_ writing style. Apparently he wrote it in two days straight with the aid of way too much coffee. (This is partly the translator's fault--other translator's version are a [slight] improvement, and when Foucault wrote in English he did a better job than any of his translators. Slightly better, that is.) Be prepared for sentences within sentences within sentences within sentences within sentences, none of which are marked off by parentheses or dashes. Foucault uses commas very, very lavishly, as some sort of all-purpose punctuation mark, and shies away from periods as if they were the Plague. Eventually, you get used to it, though, and the content is actually worth it.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, page 7, 8

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