The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1

⚖The case for it

Foucault writes as though plain statement were beneath him, and whole pages sound grand while saying little. Push through it. The argument under the murk holds up: the nineteenth century did not hush sex, he says; it built the confessional and the clinic, set sex talking without end, then flattered us with the story that we were the ones breaking a silence. The idea sticks. Notice it the next time an app asks you, warmly, to be honest about what you want.

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Foucault asserts more than he demonstrates; the book is a program announcement stretched to book length, with footnotes thin enough to alarm any historian. Power produces everything in these pages, which comes close to explaining nothing. And the multivolume history it promises never arrived as advertised: he abandoned the plan and wrote about antiquity instead.

— the honest librarian