Discipline and Punish

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Timeless classic - Rated
If you are interested about justice, sociology and society you should some day read this excellent story of how control over people has changed within last five hundred years. Perhaps mr Foucault was inspired by Orwell's 1984 and turned it to be scientifically consistent theory or control. Great thing is that you don't need to be scientist to understand about this book which means that it must have been hard work to make the text sound as easily to comprehend.

A classic - pure and simple - Rated
So far as the social sciences are concerned, this is one of the most influential books to have been published in the last fifty years. Whereas radical social theorists used cite Marx most commonly, now they cite Foucault as often as not. And of all Foucault's work, this seems to be the most cited.

It begins with a description of a gruesome execution (not for the squeamish) and then moves on to describe a system of punishment a mere eighty years later that is utterly different: in place of the hanging, drawing and quartering there is a detailed timetable for a disciplinary regime in a prison. Why the drastic change? Foucault claims the target of punishment is no longer the body, but the 'soul': the soul is to be disciplined and prisoners reformed. It's all connected with the rise of capitalism and a move towards the ordered, disciplinary society. Famously, Foucault explains the principle of the panopticon in which a few guards in a central observation tower can observe a large number of prisoners in a circular prison. This vividly illustrates the way in which modern societies use surveillance techniques to control people. Knowledge combines with power to form an efficient means to conduct people's conduct. (Foucault picks up on the double meaning of 'conduct'.)

It's a great, original analysis of one aspect of modernity. Foucault is much more readable than certain other authors associated with postmodernism (not that Foucault himself accepted the label): if you're accustomed to reading academic material, it's not a difficult read, though the general public might struggle. And you don't have to buy into any general theory of power, postmodern relativism, etc. to get something from it. A brilliant intellect was at work in the writing of this book: it's well worth a read.

Foucault rules! - Rated
As someone who is sick of hearing the nonsense that's usually talked about "crime", this book was a welcome relief. In fact, it's more than that; it's one of the few books I can actually say has changed my way of thinking about social issues.

It's a historical text, following the emergence of prisons over time and looking at conceptions of power and punishment over quite a long period, but it has often been received as a contemporary commentary. Foucault once said (in Remarks on Marx) that if he has so irritated contemporary authors with a historical text, then it must have contemporary relevance.

It's also remarkably readable for saying that it's a poststructuralist classic. It's also (horror of horrors!) properly referenced and argued, and actually sticks to the subject.

Somebody should insist on reading the whole thing to David Blunkett.

A great insight into crime and its punishment - Rated
Foucalt argues eloquently the idea that prisons merely perpetuate violence, that the chain of events in a criminals life may sometimes create someone who is even worse. That we behave in ways according to who is watching us. Written in a way in which you have to concentrate but extremely intresting peice of writing.

A fascinating genealogy of practices in modern society - Rated
In this insightful study, Foucault provides a meticulous account on the normalising practices employed by modern society. Using the example of the emergence of the prison Foucault shows how modern society is obsessed by a need to systematise, generalise, examine, and more generally subjectifying the individual by means of disciplinary techniques.

I can highly recommend this book, probably one of the best I have ever read.

Commenting on the review by the reader from the US (13 March 2000), Foucault is not actually writing a history of the prison, but is rather taking a genealogical approach. This suggests that we need to rethink the traditional notion of events being ordered along a continuum of chronological time.