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  • Published: 14 November 2019
  • ISBN: 9780141991344
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176

The History of Sexuality: 1

The Will to Knowledge




A seminal text on sexuality from one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers

Why has there been such an explosion of discussion about sex in the west since the 17th century? Here, one of France's greatest intellectuals explores the evolving social, economic and political forces that have shaped our attitudes to sex. In a book that is at once controversial and seductive, Foucault describes how we are in the process of making a science of sex which is devoted to the analysis of desire rather than the increase of pleasure.

  • Published: 14 November 2019
  • ISBN: 9780141991344
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176

About the author

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault was one of the most influential thinkers in the contemporary world. Social scientist and historian of ideas, Foucault was Profesor of History of Systems of Thought at the Collège de France. He wrote frequently for French newspapers and reviews, and edited Critique. Among his many publications are Madness and Civilisation (1961); The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972); The Birth of the Clinic (1973); Discipline and Punish (1975); and three volumes of The History of Sexuality: Volume One, The Will To Knowledge (1976); Volume Two: The Use of Pleasure (1984); and Volume Three: The Care of the Self (1984). Many of his books are published by Penguin. Ethics and Aesthetics, the first and second parts of a three volume Essential Works of Michael Foucault, were recently published by Penguin. Power, part three, was recently published by Allen Lane. Professor Foucault died in 1994.

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