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  • Published: 13 April 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241389584
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $55.00

The History of Sexuality: 4

Confessions of the Flesh




The final, previously unpublished volume of one of the twentieth century's seminal works

Foucault's History of Sexuality changed the way we think about power, selfhood and sexuality. In this fourth and final volume, he turns his attention to early Christianity, exploring how ancient ideas of pleasure were modified into the Christian notion of the 'flesh' - a transformation that would define the Western experience of sexuality.

Essentially completed at Foucault's death, the manuscript of this volume was locked away in a Paris bank vault for nearly thirty years. Now for the first time, the work is available to English-language readers as the author originally conceived it.

  • Published: 13 April 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241389584
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $55.00

About the author

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault was one of the most influential thinkers in the contemporary world. Social scientist and historian of ideas, Foucault was Profesor of History of Systems of Thought at the Collège de France. He wrote frequently for French newspapers and reviews, and edited Critique. Among his many publications are Madness and Civilisation (1961); The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972); The Birth of the Clinic (1973); Discipline and Punish (1975); and three volumes of The History of Sexuality: Volume One, The Will To Knowledge (1976); Volume Two: The Use of Pleasure (1984); and Volume Three: The Care of the Self (1984). Many of his books are published by Penguin. Ethics and Aesthetics, the first and second parts of a three volume Essential Works of Michael Foucault, were recently published by Penguin. Power, part three, was recently published by Allen Lane. Professor Foucault died in 1994.

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Praise for The History of Sexuality: 4

Nearly 35 years after his death, Foucault remains a vital reference point, and his History of Sexuality remains required reading ... The appearance of the fourth volume is itself the most significant event in the world of Foucault scholarship in 20 years ... Essential

Los Angeles Review of Books

The most innovative and influential French thinker of the contemporary era

Sudhir Hazareesingh, Guardian
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