Foucault: A Very Short Introduction

I wish I'd found this little volume before embarking on an attempt to digest Foucault's major works whole - it might have saved considerable frustration. Don't expect a categorical analysis of any of them from Gutting's survey, that's not what this is for. Do expect a more distant perspective from which the forest is no longer obscured by the trees. Neither is this a Cliff Notes version of Foucault's work - if you haven't taken the trouble to place that within a larger philosophical context the book likely won't be of much use to you. For what it is, however, it succeeds brilliantly within the few pages allotted, and Gutting has performed a minor miracle of concision and clarification. Given the occasional verbosity of Foucault and the more than occasional turbidity of his works, that's worth the purchase price alone.

Gary Gutting's brief survey of the thought of Michel Foucault is not merely one of the best books in Oxford UP's Very Short Introductions series, but one of the clearest, most insightful pieces on Foucault that I've read. I haven't read much Foucault since working my way through most of his books in the late eighties. To prepare for a re-reading of those books I decided to read this book as a refresher/quick overview. Most of the secondary works on Foucault that I read back when where usually borderline impenetrable. Although Foucault is infinitely more lucid than many other French writers -- there is a world of difference between, for instance, Baudrillard and Foucault -- he is unfortunately too prone to linguistic obfuscation. Too many of Foucault's would-be disciples attempt to write in a prose style that is as opaque as anyone on the Left Bank. Gutting is in contrast a model of clarity. He writes insightfully about Foucault while making the analysis no more difficult than it needs to be. The chapters of the book are constructed around discussions of Foucault's major works. They are thematic to the degree that those books dealt with specific ideas or subjects. In every case Gutting does a marvelous job of establishing the context of these works, how they depart from traditional discussions, how they provided innovative new ways of understanding our world, and what some of the more problematic aspects of the works are. Gutting clearly (and justifiably) believes that Foucault made some very important contributions that enable us to understand how problematic many of our unexamined assumptions about society are, but at the same time refuses to be a blind disciple. There are shortcomings to Foucault's work as well as some misconceptions. Gutting is as willing to acknowledge the former as he is to battle the latter. I strongly recommend this to anyone wanting to read Foucault for the first time, as well as anyone (like myself) who haven't read him in a while but would like a refresher. To be frank, I believe I would have made better use of my reading of Foucault had I had an introduction this clear and insightful when I was reading him in the late eighties.

Written in an easy-read, yet perfectly scholarly manner, Foucault: A Very Short Introduction is a great jumping-off point for the student or interested scholar of literary, cultural, and/or political theory. While brief (as promised) and cursory, it nevertheless goes to the heart of much of Foucault's work as it has influenced that of other modern thinkers. An enjoyable read that will no doubt point in many directions for further study. Contains a good bibliography as well.