Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the College De France, 1975 76

Customer Reviews

This book rules! - By: ldxar1, 27 Aug 2004
This book is Foucault at his best. He traces various themes regarding power, defence, life/death, the military, legislation, the state, etc., as they developed & changed in various European contexts in the late-modern period. Foucault manages to combine "history of thought" (for instance, an excellent chapter on Hobbes) with social history & history of everyday life (for instance, in his analysis of the theme of class/race war in the English Revolution). Central to his analysis is the idea that the division of society into groups or "races" defines a particular constellation of power in this period, which graduallly gives way to regimes of bio-power & transmutes into modern discourses such as socialism & racism. Cruciallly, this text links Foucault's early work on the disciplines to his later works on biopower & self-care.

I would recommend this book both to existing Foucault readers & enthusiasts, & to those new to Foucault - especiallly if they already have interests in areas such as theorising everyday life, political theory, history of thought, social history, the French & English revolutions & ideas of the body, bio-power etc., but also because this book is as good as any as a way into the massive & intensely rewarding corpus of Foucault's work.

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