About This Site
What this is
The Foucault Bookshelf (book.themodel.be) is a book guide for people who wanted to read Michel Foucault, picked up a major work, and stalled on its thickness or its style. This English edition selects five titles currently available on amazon.com and presents them in a reading order that won't defeat you — a short map, then Foucault in his own words, then his most readable major work, then the harder archaeology. A Japanese edition is also maintained, alongside sister shelves such as the Philosophy Bookshelf and the Nietzsche Bookshelf.
The editorial room runs a family of philosopher bookshelves and a section-by-section reading archive of the primary texts. Every review and reading-order recommendation on this site rests on that first-hand reading and on explicit bibliographic checking.
How this edition differs from the Japanese one
The Japanese shelf builds its ladder around the standard Shinchōsha translations and two well-loved introductions by Gen Nakayama (Hajimete Yomu Fūkō and Fūkō Nyūmon). Those two introductions exist only in Japanese. Rather than leave the entry-level slots empty, this English edition substitutes works that play the same roles for an English reader: Gary Gutting's Foucault: A Very Short Introduction as the short scholarly map, and The Foucault Reader (ed. Paul Rabinow) as the anthology of Foucault's own words. We also carry The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 in place of one of the early archaeologies, because it is short, pivotal, and readily available in English. The flagship (Discipline and Punish) and the summit (The Order of Things) are the same in both editions.
How books are chosen and rated
- Judgements about the works themselves rest on the editorial room's first-hand reading. Star ratings are our own; no Amazon customer reviews are reproduced.
- Where a book is a short introduction, an anthology, or a full-length major work, the review says exactly what it is and what role it can honestly play. An introduction is a map, not the building — and we say so.
- All descriptions are written by us; no publisher copy is reproduced.
- Any quotations are widely circulated, verifiable lines set off in blockquotes with their source given — not reproductions of the translations under review.
- Cover images are jacket-style images of our own design and differ from the actual covers.
- Prices and availability change, so we do not print them; always check the Amazon product page.
Amazon link disclosure
As an Amazon Associate, this site (The Foucault Bookshelf) may earn from qualifying purchases.
Book links on this edition go to product pages on Amazon (amazon.com). If a purchase is made through them, this site may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Commissions never influence the ratings — recommending books you will actually finish, rather than books that merely sell, is in the end what serves readers best.
Privacy policy
This is a static site; no personal information is collected server-side. The browser's localStorage is used solely to count link clicks (to improve the ranking's accuracy); that data stays in your browser and is never transmitted. Once you follow a link to Amazon, Amazon.com's privacy policy applies.
Contact
For corrections and inquiries, please use the contact address on our sister site soqdoq.com.