Discipline and Punish

Discipline and Punish

The Birth of the Prison

Summary

'Imaginative, illuminating and innovative' The New York Times Book Review

The grisly spectacle of public executions and torture of centuries ago has been replaced by the penal system in western society - but has anything really changed?

In his revolutionary work on control and power relations in our public institutions, Michel Foucault argues that the development of prisons, police organizations and legal hierarchies has merely changed the focus of domination from our bodies to our souls. Even schools, factories, barracks and hospitals, in which an individual's time is controlled hour by hour, are part of a disciplinary society.

'Foucault's genius is called forth into the eloquent clarity of his passions ... his best book' Washington Post

Reviews

  • Discipline and Punish is clearly a tour de force ... that rare kind of book whose methods and conclusions must be reckoned with by humanists, social scientists and political activists
    The New York Times Book Review

About the author

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucalt (1926-1984) was one of the leading intellectuals of the twentieth century and the most prominent thinker in postwar France. Foucault's work influenced disciplines as diverse as history, sociology, philosophy, sociology and literary criticism.
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