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Reviews
The Archaeology of Knowledge & The Discourse on Language by A.M. Sheridan Smith, Michel Foucault
burstona's review against another edition
1.0
Foucault's method, archaeology, is self-indulgent with units of analysis that mean whatever he wants them to. He also justifies the study of history relying only on written text, ignoring other key pieces of historical and archaeological knowledge. After understanding his methods, I simply could not the rest of his work seriously.
jamesbesaw's review against another edition
2.0
Enjoyment: 1/5
Personal comprehension: -2/5
Cultural significance: (Apparently) 5/5
I read this book and "Madness & Civilization" for a class I took on Foucault. Foucault's work is monumental in the fields of Philosophy, Literary Criticism, and History. For this reason alone, I feel tempted to give the book a 5/5. I was excited to read this text and learn more about this important work. Unfortunately, Foucault did not make this easy! His writing was almost incomprehensible at times. Unless you must read Foucault, I would suggest reading a book about Foucault. It also seems that most of the ideas one can glean from this text have already been developed by other authors in both more compelling and clear ways. I really wanted to be charitable to his work but the more I read the less sympathetic I became.
With all that said, I apologize to all you lovers of Foucault out there. Admittedly I did not understand this work well enough to really comment on the strengths or weaknesses of his argument. If you're interested in a charitable introduction to Foucault, I would suggest Gary Gutting's "Foucault: A Very Short Introduction."
Personal comprehension: -2/5
Cultural significance: (Apparently) 5/5
I read this book and "Madness & Civilization" for a class I took on Foucault. Foucault's work is monumental in the fields of Philosophy, Literary Criticism, and History. For this reason alone, I feel tempted to give the book a 5/5. I was excited to read this text and learn more about this important work. Unfortunately, Foucault did not make this easy! His writing was almost incomprehensible at times. Unless you must read Foucault, I would suggest reading a book about Foucault. It also seems that most of the ideas one can glean from this text have already been developed by other authors in both more compelling and clear ways. I really wanted to be charitable to his work but the more I read the less sympathetic I became.
With all that said, I apologize to all you lovers of Foucault out there. Admittedly I did not understand this work well enough to really comment on the strengths or weaknesses of his argument. If you're interested in a charitable introduction to Foucault, I would suggest Gary Gutting's "Foucault: A Very Short Introduction."
jpowerj's review against another edition
3.0
I need to come back to it - I truly came away with almost zero understanding of what Foucault was trying to get across. Several friends have recommended "Discipline and Punish" as a more gentle intro to Foucault, so I'll try that.