Reassessing Foucault - Power, Medicine and the Body (Hardcover, New)

Although Michel Foucault has had an impact upon the intellectual life of the last couple of decades, his work remains controversial. This work re-examines his ideas and their influence in many areas of the social sciences and the history of ideas and culture. Foucault's work has proved provocative. In terms of methodology, he challenged the outlooks of the history of ideas, denying continuity and progress and the stability of disciplines. In specific fields of enquiry, such as the history of madness or of prisons, he set out to expose the essentially mythic nature of the established narratives and analytical frameworks. He also produced radical new readings of central figures and bodies of thought, particularly of Freud and psychoanalysis.