History of Madness

When it was first published in France in 1961 as Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la Folie à l'âge Classique, few had heard of a thirty-four year old philosopher by the name of Michel Foucault. By the time an abridged English edition was published in 1967 as Madness and Civilization, Michel Foucault had shaken the intellectual world.

This translation is the only English language edition of the complete French text, including all prefaces and appendices.

Shifting deftly from Descartes to the founding of the Hôpital Général in Paris and early psychiatry, Foucault explores not only scientific and medical analyses of madness, but also the philosophical and cultural values attached to the mad. He also urges us to recognize the creative and liberating forces that madness represents, brilliantly drawing on examples from Goya, Nietzsche, Van Gogh and Artaud.

History of Madness is an inspiring and classic work that challenges us to understand madness, reason and power and the forces that shape them.

This Routledge Classics edition includes a new introductory Post Scriptum by Jean Khalfa and, published here for the first time in English, a lecture Foucault delivered in 1970 at the University of Tokyo, where he summarizes some of the principal themes in this book. It is translated by Jean Khalfa and Joshua Heath.