Product Description

Possibly one of the most significant, yet most overlooked, works of the twentieth century, it was The Order of Things that established Foucault's reputation as an intellectual giant.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20560 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From the Back Cover
When one defines order as a sorting of priorities, it becomes beautifully clear as to what Foucault is doing here. With virtuoso showmanship, he weaves an intensely complex history of thought. He dips into literature, art, economics and even biology in The Order of Things, possibly one of the most significant works of the twentieth century. Preluding his later work on power and discourse, it was The Order of Things that established Foucaults reputation as an intellectual giant. Pirouetting around the edges of language, Foucault unsettles the surface of literary writing. In describing the limitations of our usual categories, he opens the door onto a whole new system of thought, one ripe with what he calls exotic charm. Intellectual pyrotechnics from the master of critical thinking, this book is crucial reading for those who wish to gain insight into that odd beast called Postmodernism, and a must for any fan of Foucault.

About the Author
Michel Foucault (1926-84). Celebrated French thinker and activist who challenged people's assumptions about care of the mentally ill, gay rights, prisons, the police and welfare.

Customer Reviews

Complex but spectacular
The order of things is complex, and Foucault's writing style fluctuates between the need for re-reading a paragraph at least twice to understand it to whole chapters virtually reading themselves. The central plank of the book is how language, work, and life are preceived through his three epistemes or ages - of before the sixteenth century, c1650-1800 (the classical period), and post-late eighteenth-century. Foucault's 'episteme' sees him set out to find and articulate the 'perimeter', the outerlimits of the ways people can perceive things at a given time. It is a hard read, as should be expected for a book on the order of all things, but a work of complete genius.