Society Must be Defended / Michel Foucault

One of the most provocative and polemical thinkers of modern times, Michel Foucault exposed the systems of power inherent in all aspects of society with his revolutionary studies of sexuality, madness and punishment. In these masterly lectures given at the Collège de France in 1975–1976 and published here for the first time in English, he turns his attention to the idea of war. Although we see wars in terms of weapons and battles, Foucault contends that there is in fact a constant ‘silent war’ in society, where all power relations and political institutions are based on force, conflict and domination. In this sense, he argues, politics is actually ‘a continuation of war by other means’.