There are two words which perfectly describe this book - Rated 
One of them is a term for a male bovine, and the other is not appropriate for a book review.
Reliability of Foucault's discussion - Rated
There has been scholarly criticism of the historical "facts" upon which Foucault bases his analysis. For example, "When other historians have examined the details of Foucault's account...they have concluded that the historical record provides very little support for...any of the philosophical points he wants to make".
This is an extract from a long article by K Windschuttle in Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy vol 1, No 2, 1998, pp 5-35. The article is available on the internet.
See also "Scholarship of Fools" by A Scull in Times Literary Supplement, March 2007, pp 3-4.
I am not competent to judge for or against.
History Catching Up With Itself - Rated 
I am relatively new to the work of Foucault but (despite the arguments I have read elsewhere regarding whether he was essentially humanist or anti-humanist in orientation) it seems to me that his project here, an early one, was that of humanising the history of madness, or rather, bringing into the humanity of modern discourse the rather inhuman and widely divergent historical discourses on madness. We start at a massive remove from the modern discourses of mental health but trace a discernable path through historically changing social values and (what was later called) epistemes to reach it.
Foucault is very free with his style in this work and the tempo changes to accomodate different historical moods, as if he is in some kind of empathy or zeitgeist with the periods he lights up for us.
I wouldn't say that this is a pleasant read, since it deals with the harsh realities of confinement and the treating of inmates as animals - or less than - in some periods of time, but it feels very much like a necessary read, for anyone wondering how the medical perspective on madnes has become so hypostasised and final. In this respect the work is part of the bigger "archeology" of Foucault's other writings (which I am now undertaking). So, I guess I can conclude about this work, it definitely got me interested in a bigger picture and opened me to the significance that history plays behind the scenes of everyday life. Not light reading, but definitely worthwhile.
A QUESTION OF POWER... - Rated 
This is not light reading and it takes some dedication to work through the chapters. The debates are as relevant today as they were when the book was published - just whom do we socially construct as "mad"? For Foucault, it's a question of power, charting the shifting status of madness through the late sixteenth to early nineteenth century. Some passages are easier to negotiate than others, equally this is a translation, adding to the difficulty of style. However, for any student of the history of medicine, it is essential reading. The key essay is the classic 'Birth of the Asylum', centering on Foucault's critique of the new moral treatment of the insane, as practiced at the famous Quaker Retreat Hospital in York, echoing developments in post-Revolutionary France. A stimulating, but challenging read.
|
