Rating: 
Summary: To talk is to repress.
Review: A clear reversal from what we thought about as the "Silence of the Victorian Era" to actually an explosion of discussion about what was allowed and not allowed. Following along Foucault's line of reasoning with the Body as the focal point of Discourse and the seat of Power. We are both now Subject and Object of our Discourse. The Body is the final frontier. A wonderful, yet perplexing end of the line of sorts to a series of pieces such as "Discipline and Punish" and "Madness and Civilzation". Foucault takes us on a ride and strips bare the forces behind our social engineering. We often wonder how the forces and counter forces of this intangible and immeasureable "thing" called Power what it is and how it weaves its way in and out of our conciousness. Foucault and "The History of Sexuality" is only one and by far the definitive or representative piece of his examination of Power. A challenge to read (as is most of his work, specially "The Order of Things") this eclectic iconoclast takes you on a rocket ride you will not forget. Buckle your seat belt because you and Toto can kiss Kansas goodbye.Miguel Llora
Rating: 
Summary: Briliantly pessimistic
Review: Foucault has an extraordinary Nietzchean ability to dismentle accepted ideas and raise new paradoxes. The irony he poses: the more we cultivate individuality and pursue personal freedom, the more hopelessly entangled we become in the menacing net of science and "bio-power." Is Foucault truly unique, or is he being clever; is he a thinker or simply an iconoclast? It's for you to determine. A very interesting book.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most important books of our time
Review: Foucault's three-part History of Sexuality begins here with an examination of the ways in which our contemporary interpretation of sexuality has been shaped by historical trends. Foucault makes a compelling case for the construction of sexual identity as a function of political and economic forces. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in sexuality, psychoanalysis, gender studies, queer theory, or feminisms, or indeed anyone who wishes to confront his or her own personal assumptions about gender and sexuality. Think you know what normal is? After Foucault, you may not be so sure. (One more thing: while this book is a fascinating read which can stand alone, I strongly advise anyone interested in this subject to go on to read the second and third volumes)
Rating: 
Summary: A Product of an Ailing Culture
Review: Foucault's work, particularly that on sexuality, is not so much a contribution to philiosophy as it is a part of the "Everything is political if I say it is" movement that has blossomed in academe since the 60s. Without the rise to power of gender fascists in academe, Foucault would never have been considered anything but what he is: a professor who seeks to secure a position in his profession by wild rhetorical exaggeration, outrageous posturing, feverish "networking," and pandering to hot topics that excite adolescents and graduate students in need of a dissertation topic. There's no question that Foucault has been very popular in the past fifteen years, and remains so. But the truth is that what he says is actually not original: take some French Structuralism, mix with some Nietzschien platitudes (one can only scream with laughter at the thought of what Nietzsche would have thought if someone suggested that there was anything in common between himself and Foucault!), rip-off Derrida's notion of differance, place in an envelope entitled The Personal Is the Political, and there you have it. He's a god to the PC people in the US, but, in fact, no one reads him in France, where he's regarded as passe and part of the Stalinist/Maoist period when thought was always made handmaiden to politics, with the predictable result that thought was either "politically correct" (as the 20th century Marxists used to say long before the phrase ever reached the popular press) or it was corrupt and oppressive. Since this latter notion is dominant in American academe today, with feminists and other gender fanatics calling the shots, it's no surprise that Foucault should still be taken so seriously there. Foucault's History of Sexuality is a perfect example of PC politics in academe, and has been a rhetorical model for thousands of awful dissertations, articles and books since then. May his baleful influence pass, and may thought return to the classroom.
Rating:
Summary: Easily Foucault's most readable book
Review: Foucault's writing is never very straight forward or easy to decipher, but this book contains his most readable material. At least this is true for the first half of the book. This is not to say the second half is worthless. On the contrary the second half is where is most interesting ideas lie, such as "biopower" and turning Bacon's idea of "Knowledge is Power" and its head and stating that power is actually knowledge. But I recommend that this be read in a class with a teacher that understands Foucault.
The main fault I have with this piece of writing is that I am not sure what his true objective is in writing the book. While there is a chapter titled "Objective" Foucault is never that straight forward. I understood his argument but I never understood what that argument lead to. If all he says in the book is right then what should we do. Foucault explains that we have been looking at power and sex all wrong for all these years. But when he shows his reader how to look at power and sex he never tells his reader what to do now. What needs to be changed with our society? What were we doing wrong besides looking at power and sex incorrectly? These are questions I felt went unanswered, at least to my standards. But this is definitively something a sociologist or anyone interested in sexual history should read. It is not an easy read but it is worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: A comprehesive survey of power's historical structure
Review: History of Sexuality shows the way power shifts in relation to sexuality. Foucault goes down through history since the Age of Reason, and describes how sexuality was used by the church, and the state in order to control they way the "individual" behaves. Truly an exceptional book. Very few books are able to question history's own construction within its own definiton as this book does.
Rating:
Summary: represents an approach to historiography more so than sex
Review: I am perhaps less knowledgeable about Foucault than some of the other reviewers here, but I would like to make a point that I feel is essential, and which I did not find emphasized here.
Foucault thought of his work as elaboration on method, as far as I could gather from "The Archaelogy of Knowledge." (which may have been, BTW, one of the most boring books I have ever read- though others may disagree- possibly because an artist is usually in a poor position to comment on his/her own work.)
The method that he sought to describe in "Archaeology" does, nevertheless, exist, and IT is what makes the "Sexuality" trilogy an amazing work. While debunking the many faulty ideas we have about sexuality and its history, Foucault points to a way of deciphering culture past and present which can be applied to any subject, and is within the level of expertise of most anyone: the critical thinking so many apply to analyzing professional sports is more than sophisticated enough to understand, say, Medieval individuals' conception of magical religious objects, or any other (more useful to you specifically, perhaps) subject.
My hope is that the person who picks this book up will consider it as more than merely a collection of curious things "they used to do" which we don't, or whatever, but be compelled enough to continue studying how our culture has evolved (whatever your culture may be I suppose, sorry if you are one of the unfortunate ones whose cultural identity was destroyed by another's). My point is that, it is fun (as much fun as reading through pages of sports' statistics); not difficult or elitist (again, using the cryptic sports' statistics as the example-- it always takes a bit to learn the language); and I argue, potentially more useful, though of course, it is not inherently so, since it all does depends on what your definition of useful is.
Dmitry
Rating: 
Summary: Oh boy, a french intellectual!
Review: I have to confess that I just could not finish this book. At page 118 (of a 160 page book) I hadn't learned a thing,. It was time to recognize that quitting was preferable to wasting even more time. As history the book is poor in that it is not specific. References are made to Greece, the 18th Century, or "at least since the Middle Ages" but, strictly speaking, the vague and general concepts in the book are not related to any particular time or place in history. The author is not a historian, rather he is more of a pompous intellectual philosopher given to odd word forms, complex sentence construction, and extremely obtuse conceptual ways to say simple things. And, even with all that padding he only manages to squeeze out 160 small pages in which he seems to say little more than that sex was repressed throughout history until recently when all the repression forced a degree sexual preoccupation and scrutiny that is way out of proportion. He closes with, "the irony of this deployment (repression to scrutiny) is in us having to believe that our "liberation" is in the balance. What he means is that our liberation is not in the balance but that we think it is merely out of an artificially inflated desire to escape centuries of sexual repression. Does he really think that we won't care so much about sex now that he has explained the "deployment" of sex throughout history or was he just desperate for a conceptual conclusion to a phony history book, that simultaneously fails as meaningful sociology or psychology?
I suggest "The 91% Factor," Why Women Initiate 91% of Divorce. It is clear, simple, logically consistent, about the most important aspect of sex, and was not written by a "French" intellectual more taken with his use of language than the quality of his thought.
Rating:
Summary: Oh boy, a french intellectual!
Review: I have to confess that I just could not finish this book. At page 118 (of a 160 page book) I hadn't learned a thing,. It was time to recognize that quitting was preferable to wasting even more time. As history the book is poor in that it is not specific. References are made to Greece, the 18th Century, or "at least since the Middle Ages" but, strictly speaking, the vague and general concepts in the book are not related to any particular time or place in history. The author is not a historian, rather he is more of a pompous intellectual philosopher given to odd word forms, complex sentence construction, and extremely obtuse conceptual ways to say simple things. And, even with all that padding he only manages to squeeze out 160 small pages in which he seems to say little more than that sex was repressed throughout history until recently when all the repression forced a degree sexual preoccupation and scrutiny that is way out of proportion. He closes with, "the irony of this deployment (repression to scrutiny) is in us having to believe that our "liberation" is in the balance. What he means is that our liberation is not in the balance but that we think it is merely out of an artificially inflated desire to escape centuries of sexual repression. Does he really think that we won't care so much about sex now that he has explained the "deployment" of sex throughout history or was he just desperate for a conceptual conclusion to a phony history book, that simultaneously fails as meaningful sociology or psychology?
I suggest "The 91% Factor," Why Women Initiate 91% of Divorce. It is clear, simple, logically consistent, about the most important aspect of sex, and was not written by a "French" intellectual more taken with his use of language than the quality of his thought.
Rating:
Summary: Come on guys let's not get ahead of ourselves
Review: If you're looking for a history of sexuality, this is not the book for you. Unlike Madness and Civilization, this work has very few historical details, and those it includes basically just support the theory of the text. Also, unlike M&C, this book is almost entirely theory, and the theory isn't even very interesting. You thought Victorian society was repressive? Well it also showed an unheard of explosion of sexual discourses! Foucault questions why we have made sex the bearer of a secret truth that must continually be sought, and continually elude us. This is likely the least sexy book ever written on sexuality; probably owing to Foucault's belief that sexuality is a "historical product."
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