Foucault employs an exacting and yet artistic methodology of historical-sociological interpretation of the history of madness in the age of reason. In this impressive work, he discovers that the origin of insanity, of psychological confinement, corresponds with the diminution of leprosy in Europe, and that the sectors of institutional power sought to find another means of normalization and social control through the imprisonment, and public degradation of the mentally ill, the poor, and the homeless. This power dynamic later manifests itself in the form of absolute confinement and normalcy, in which the insane were subjected to physiological experimentation, which marks an apparent disregard for Descartes' mind-body distinction. Foucault skillfully outlines the means of psychological repair through the exploration of the balancing of the four humors, to the revealing of insanity's non-being and non-reason through its release to the ultimate freedom of nature. Foucault then examines the transition of psychology from the real of biological-intellectual non-reason, to the imposition of moral and religious absolutism and the birth of the asylum, and finally to the (perhaps salvation) of Freud and psychoanalysis, in which the patient-doctor relationship is recreated as a mode of observation, not judgment or condescension, "he made it the Mirror in which madness, in an almost motionless movement, clings to and casts off itself" (pg. 278). Foucault's Madness and Civilization represents an important breakthrough in the field of post-modern philosophy; it is truly an excellent work of scholarship and profound insight.

-As a side note, this edition appears to be an incomplete version of Foucault's book, as it contains nothing on Descartes and his methodoligical relation between madness and doubt raised in the Meditations. This section would later be the focus of Derrida's criticism in his lecture 'Cogito and the History of Madness,' published in 'Writing and Difference,'which caused a rift between the two thinkers. The Vintage edition appears to be only one half of Foucault's original book. The complete version of the text is going to be published by Routledge later this year, so hold off on this one.

Certain reviewers of this book seem to confuse the categories of operation Focualt addresses in this book and others. He is not making the simplistic argument that "madness" is socially constructed but rather that certain concepts, including the medicalized model of insanity, only become possible under cetain conditions and operate within a specific, historical and culutral formation of knowledge. Understanding what these conditions are, and how these change is important both to become critical concerning the limitations of current organizations of these concepts, but also so that one does not anachronistically project present concepts into the past, ie, seeing 18th century discourses as premature versions of today's ideas. The problem of madness as an object of knowledge is his task within the history of ideas, not discerning its reality.

Those that fail to recognize this, both the cultural relativists and the reactionaries, reveal their own lack of critical thought and say little about the text's strengths or weaknesses.