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A review by jamesbesaw
The Archaeology of Knowledge: And the Discourse on Language by Michel Foucault
2.0
Enjoyment: 1/5
Personal comprehension: -2/5
Cultural significance: (Apparently) 5/5
I read this book and "Madness & Civilization" for a class I took on Foucault. Foucault's work is monumental in the fields of Philosophy, Literary Criticism, and History. For this reason alone, I feel tempted to give the book a 5/5. I was excited to read this text and learn more about this important work. Unfortunately, Foucault did not make this easy! His writing was almost incomprehensible at times. Unless you must read Foucault, I would suggest reading a book about Foucault. It also seems that most of the ideas one can glean from this text have already been developed by other authors in both more compelling and clear ways. I really wanted to be charitable to his work but the more I read the less sympathetic I became.
With all that said, I apologize to all you lovers of Foucault out there. Admittedly I did not understand this work well enough to really comment on the strengths or weaknesses of his argument. If you're interested in a charitable introduction to Foucault, I would suggest Gary Gutting's "Foucault: A Very Short Introduction."
Personal comprehension: -2/5
Cultural significance: (Apparently) 5/5
I read this book and "Madness & Civilization" for a class I took on Foucault. Foucault's work is monumental in the fields of Philosophy, Literary Criticism, and History. For this reason alone, I feel tempted to give the book a 5/5. I was excited to read this text and learn more about this important work. Unfortunately, Foucault did not make this easy! His writing was almost incomprehensible at times. Unless you must read Foucault, I would suggest reading a book about Foucault. It also seems that most of the ideas one can glean from this text have already been developed by other authors in both more compelling and clear ways. I really wanted to be charitable to his work but the more I read the less sympathetic I became.
With all that said, I apologize to all you lovers of Foucault out there. Admittedly I did not understand this work well enough to really comment on the strengths or weaknesses of his argument. If you're interested in a charitable introduction to Foucault, I would suggest Gary Gutting's "Foucault: A Very Short Introduction."