SOURCE: A review of Difference and Repetition, in Canadian Philosophical Reviews, Vol. XV, No. 4, August, 1995, pp. 233-35.

In the following review, Williams explicates the major issues in Difference and Repetition.

This book [Difference and Repetition] is essential for any sustained study of Deleuze's work. Here, the exegesis and interpretation of classic texts from the history of philosophy, allied to a reflection upon a series of scientific and philosophical problems, leads into a well-argued and complex exposition of an original position: a new philosophy of difference. Deleuze's early and influential research on Bergson, Hume, Nietzsche and Spinoza becomes the basis for an attack upon a mistaken and dangerous conception of difference in classical and modern thought. An affirmative philosophy of difference comes out of this encounter and guides his later works, in particular, the work with Félix Guattari in Anti-Oedipus (trans. R. Hurley, M. Seem and H. Lane...