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The work of Michel Foucault, one of the most influential of modern French social theorists and philosophers, has had a dramatic and far-reaching effect on many disciplines. The essays in this reissued collection, originally published in 1986, present Foucault's work as an important contribution to the theoretical analysis of history, language and power. They also represent a critical response to this contribution, encouraging readers not only to read Foucault for themselves, but to think about some new problems in a new way.

This radical appraisal of Durkheim's method, first published in 1988, argues that fundamental errors have been made in interpreting Durkheim. Mike Gane argues that to understand The Rules it is necessary also to understand the context of the French society in which the book was written.

An introduction to Comte's ideas -- The Comtean illusion -- The context and materials of sociology -- The intimations of social science and a new politics -- Comte's heretical report on knowledge -- But why did Comte need sociology? -- A sociological theory of modernity -- A second sociology -- Spiritual supra-state power, sociology and humanity -- Sociologists and the regime of the fetishes -- Comte's futures.

Auguste Comte is widely acknowledged as the founder of the science of sociology and the 'Religion of Humanity'. In this fascinating study, the first major reassessment of Comte's sociology for many years, Mike Gane draws on recent scholarship and presents a new reading of this remarkable figure. Comte's contributions to the history and philosophy of science have decisively influenced positive methodologies. He coined the term 'sociology' and gave it its first content, and he is renowned for having introduced the sociology of gender and emotion into sociology. What is less well known however, is that Comte contributed to ethics, and indeed coined the word 'altruism'. In this important work Gane examines Comte's sociological vision and shows that, because he thought sociology could and should be reflexive, encyclopaedic and utopian, he considered topics such as fetishism, polytheism, fate, love, and the relations between sociology, science, theology and culture. This fascinating account of the birth of sociology is an unprecedented introductory text on Comte. Gane's work is an essential read for all sociologists and students of the discipline.

Jean Baudrillard arouses strong opinions. In this collection of his most important interviews the reader gains a unique and accessible overview of Baudrillard's key ideas. The collection includes many interviews that appear in English for the first time as well as a fascinating interview and encounter between the editor and Baudrillard in Paris

Mike Gane provides an introduction to Baudrillard's cultural theory: the conception of modernity and the complex process of simulation. He examines Baudrillard's literary essays: his confrontation with Calvino, Styron, Ballard and Borges. Gane offers a coherent account of Baudrillard's theory of cultural ambience, and the culture of consumer society. And it provides an introduction to Baudrillard's fiction theory, and the analysis of transpolitical figures. The book also includes an interesting and provocative comparison of Baudrillard's powerful essay against the modernist Pompidou Centre in

Abstract
Two very substantial new books by Slavoj Žižek were published in early 2020; they are at two different ends of the spectrum that runs from obscure Hegelian-Lacanian philosophical reflections (Sex and the Failed Absolute) to uninhibited short Maoist-Leninist political "interventions" (A Left That Dares to Speak Its Name). Žižek claims to have completed an intellectual system (continuing the idea of earlier essays) that, as a philosophical foundation, currently informs his political writings. The review follows the sexual problematic through Žižek's philosophy (its antihumanist ethical and political orientations) to the politics of "the impossible" act or event.

Kieran Allen and Brian O'Boyle, Durkheim: A Critical Introduction. London: Pluto Press, 2017, 192 pp.

This review article considers two lecture courses by Michel Foucault (1972–73, 1979–80) and two books relating to the whole series of lectures (1970–84) by Stuart Elden. Foucault's lecture courses can be divided into three phases, the first focused on the difference between sovereign and disciplinary power; the second on biopower, security, and liberalism; and the third on the government of the self and others. Foucault in 1976–79 altered his earlier frame by introducing the concept of governmentality and security dispositif and identified a missing, fourth type of power-governmentality called "socialism," around which his concerns revolved for the remaining courses. Today there is a new Foucault effect, which has arisen around the courses on governmentality, neoliberalism, and biopower. The two courses by Foucault are situated in relation to the complete set of courses, and Elden's books are welcomed critically as throwing light on the background to the lectures and Foucault's main publications in this period but are problematic with respect to Foucault's theoretical framework.