12/14/21

The Introducing series are always more comprehensive and informative than they appear. They are intended to break down difficult topics into graphical form and bite-size chunks, but there is rarely any dumbing down in this process. In fact, I think sometimes too little concession is made in this respect. Foucault is difficult and subtle, and it's no mean task to explain his philosophy for the general reader even with much greater scope than this format allows. At times, then, it is this determination not to oversimplify, combined with the restrictions of the format, that make for a somewhat condensed reading experience at times. However, having read a few of these, I think this is a tendency that they all succumb to, to different extent. That said, it's still an enjoyable read, with great art.

Gareth Southwell is a philosopher, writer and illustrator.

At the risk of being repetitive, I am a great admirer of this series of books: as a autodidact, I would have been beaten by a complex character such as Faulcault, were it not for this tome.

Faulcault was a philosopher, who 'got' political at the end of the 1960's, not in his native France but in Tunisia. From that point on, he seems to have combined the two roles with varying levels of balance between the two. I do feel comfortable to take on further study of Faulcault, and his work, after reading Horrocks and Jevtic but, do not have a clear feeling as to his import. This will take time spent with Faucalt's own words and I would not expect this book to provide more. ( )

Over the last generation since the collapse of the Soviet empire, Foucault became the fashionable theorist in humanities and social sciences. Students with half an understanding flung his terms into vaguely relevant essay topics. Academics stuck to his theories and searched madly for empirical data to back them up, quite reversing the historical method. Foulcaudian studies became the new theology, half understood, arcane language being sprinkled about randomly. This book supposedly introduces Foucault, but does a poor job of it. The cartoons make the obscurity even deeper, rather than clarifying it. Is there any attempt here to clarify these ideas, or is the aim merely to summarise them? ( )