An examination of the relation between war and politics, by one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers

From 1971 until 1984 at the Collège de France, Michel Foucault gave a series of lectures ranging freely and conversationally over the range of his research. In Society Must Be Defended, Foucault deals with the emergence in the early seventeenth century of a new understanding of war as the permanent basis of all institutions of power, a hidden presence within society that could be deciphered by an historical analysis. Tracing this development, Foucault outlines the genealogy of power and knowledge that had become his dominant concern.

The second volume in an unprecedented publishing event: the complete Collège de France lectures of one of the most influential thinkers of the last century

Michel Foucault remains among the towering intellectual figures of postmodern philosophy. His works on sexuality, madness, the prison, and medicine are classics; his example continues to challenge and inspire. From 1971 until his death in 1984, Foucault gave public lectures at the world-famous Collège de France. These lectures were seminal events. Attended by thousands, they created benchmarks for contemporary critical inquiry.

The lectures comprising Abnormal begin by examining the role of psychiatry in modern criminal justice, and its method of categorizing individuals who 'resemble their crime before they commit it.' Building on the themes of societal self-defense in the first volume of this series, Foucault shows how and why defining 'abnormality' and 'normality' were prerogatives of power in the nineteenth century, shaping the institutions--from the prison system to the family--meant to deal in particular with “monstrosity,” whether sexual, phsyical, or spiritual.

The Collège de France lectures add immeasurably to our appreciation of Foucault's thought, and offer a unique window on his singular worldview.

In a poem written in exile, Ovid pictures his latest book in conversation with his previous volumes, united in the bookcase containing his collected works back in Rome. One can imagine their dialogue - in the protected space of the whispering bookcase - as loaded with allusion and intertextuality. This collection of essays by the classicist Alessandro Barchiesi examines Ovid and his 'rationalistic art of illusion' along with intertextuality in Latin literature more generally, and in the wider context of the Graeco-Roman tradition.

The book provides perspectives on the literary self-consciousness of the Latin poets, the allusive density of their texts, and the conflict between poetry and power in the Augustan age. The conflict between classicists and the texts they comment on, argue over and theorise about is also examined. Among the recurring topics in this book are the impact of intertextuality on the form of epic and epistle, the strategic significance of allusive poetics in a political context, and the importance of reading and interpretation as poetic themes.