Perspective

Michel Foucault, b. 1926 d, 1984, was a renowned lecturer and theorist throughout the world. Foucault was the director at the Institut Franzais in Hamburg and the Institut de Philosophie at the Faculty des Lettres at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, and held a chair at the prestigious Collige de France. Foucault published numerous articles and books on a wide variety of topics. Foucault's complete The History of Sexuality was published in several individual volumes beginning with volume 1, the subject of this summary.

The text's intended audience is broad and not limited by subject; however, the linguistic presentation of concepts is incredibly difficult, and the language is dense and difficult to penetrate. This is partially due to the subtle and complex topics which are constantly self-referential, partly due to an English translation of rigorously difficult French, and partly due to the author's inherent bias toward a collegiate style of topic presentation...