Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason

Softcover

ISBN 10: 067972110X ISBN 13: 9780679721109

Publisher: Vintage, 1988

Michel Foucault examines the archeology of madness in the West from 1500 to 1800 - from the late Middle Ages, when insanity was still considered part of everyday life and fools and lunatics walked the streets freely, to the time when such people began to be considered a threat, asylums were first built, and walls were erected between the "insane" and the rest of humanity.

From the Publisher:

"Superb scholarship rendered with artistry" --The Nation

From the Inside Flap:

French philosopher's masterpiece, which is concerned with an extraordinary question: What does it mean to be mad?