Foucault and the Writing of History - Softcover

"This book cuts a set of trails through Foucault and History, and mostly on European terrain; but there are other paths. It offers some new and important perspectives on Foucault's tangled relationship with his historical materials, and is also valuable because it sketches some of the cutting-edge debates and tensions in the discipline of history." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

This volume is the first to address Foucault's influence and the potential of his work in the understanding and the writing of history. It does so critically and accessibly. Scholars from the United States, France and Italy, including historians, sociologists, an anthropogist and a philosopher, range over Foucault's writing - on love and the family in classical antiquity, the constitution of the self, the history of science and sexuality, to the origins of the liberal state. But, true to its subject, this book does not conceive of history divorced from philosophy: it explores how Foucault's understanding of the past relates to his ideas of truth, ethics, knowledge and action. All-in-all, the book offers a series of mind-opening perspectives on Foucault's work, on the past, and on the present.