Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France 1974–1975. By Foucault, Michel (trans. Burchell, G. ). London: Verso. 2003. 88 pp. £20 (hb). ISBN 1 85984 539 8

Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France 1974–1975. By Foucault Michel. (trans. Burchell G.). London: Verso. 2003. 88 pp. £20 (hb). ISBN 1 85984 539 8

This book comprises the text of eleven lectures given by Michel Foucault at the Collège de France in 1974 and 1975. The author's first work to be translated into English was his Histoire de la Folie, published in 1972 as Madness and Civilisation . This first book was seen as part of the anti-psychiatry movement both by those in favour of the movement and by those against it. For the latter, it was a nihilistic text. The first two lectures in Abnormal will do nothing to change the minds of those who hold this view; they present contemporary forensic psychiatry in...