This book goes on for about 400 pages making the same claims over and over again, when all that the reader really needs to read is p. 384 "man is a very recent invention" or perhaps, for good measure, pp. 262-263 "Marxism exists outside 19th century thought like a fish outside the water..." It is filled with brilliant insights and observations, but long dense, and verbacious. Basically Foucault is arguing that the knowledge has evolved through a (contradictory) process of historical a priori, and that man qua how man exists today is a creation of 19th century discourse and will be 'extinct' in centuries to come. Do not listen to any outsider (such as David Horowitz) who attempts to disasterously label this work as 'postmodern.' Foucault resented this term; indeed, perhaps the one thing unites 'postmodern' thinkers is their aversion to having their being 'postmodern!'

This book has dramatically changed the way I conceptualize reality. It is hard to follow but incredibly insightful. It will hurt to get through but once you do, you might consider practising your best Mr.Universe pose and claiming -- in the words of the the "Governator" -- "No pain, no gain."

I recommend the following steps to understanding this book:
1) read once;
2) see a psychiatrist;
3) read again;
4) think;
5) read again
6) understand.

Im only considering step two. I might just skip it and go strait to step 3.

Good luck.

This book is one of the most important philosophy texts of the 20th century, if for no other reason than as an eye-opener. The text is a difficult read (although nowhere near as opaque as Derrida). The section on how our culture and, hence, our world-view has been "set" by accepted taxonomies is worth the read all by itself. I have come back to these comments again and again. Taxonomies are useful, but we need to understand the constraints on understanding imposed by such

Foucault's stuff is hardly pleasure reading, but it rewards in other ways, more subtly. If you don't read Foucault without coming away with a deeper sense of the world around you, how power and knowledge is diffuse and not central, you would be a rare person. This book isn't so much concerned with power as it is the history of ideas, though.