Foucault - Lois McNay

This work provides an introduction to the work of Michel Foucault. It
offers an assessment of all of Foucault's work, including his final
writings on governmentality and the self. McNay argues that the later
work initiates an important shift in his intellectual concerns which
alters any retrospective reading of his writings as a whole. Throughout,
McNay is concerned to assess the normative and political implications
of Foucault's social criticism. She goes beyond the level of many
commentators to look at the values from which Foucault's work springs
and reveals the implicit assumptions underlying his social critique. The
author also provides an account and assessment of recent literature on
Foucault, including that of Habermas and Taylor. She discusses
Foucault's position in the modernity/postmodernity debate, his own
ambivalence to Enlightenment thought and his place in recent
developments in feminist and cultural theory.