Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collhge de France, 1975-76, Paperback

An examination of the relation between war and politics, by one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers

From 1971 until 1984 at the Coll ge de France, Michel Foucault gave a series of lectures ranging freely and conversationally over the range of his research. In Society Must Be Defended, Foucault deals with the emergence in the early seventeenth century of a new understanding of war as the permanent basis of all institutions of power, a hidden presence within society that could be deciphered by an historical analysis. Tracing this development, Foucault outlines the genealogy of power and knowledge that had become his dominant concern.

About the Author:

Michel Foucault, acknowledged as the preeminent philosopher of France in the '70s and '80s, had enormous impact throughout the world in many disciplines.

David Macey has translated twenty books from the French and is the author of The Lives of Michel Foucault and Frantz Fanon (Picador). He lives in Leeds, England.