The History of Sexuality

by Michel Foucault

Published 31 December 1978
Michel Foucault's The Will to Knowledge is the first part of his influential trilogy of books on the history of sexuality. He argues that the recent explosion of discussion about sex in the West means that, far from being liberated, we are in the process of making a science of sexuality that is devoted to the analysis of desire rather than the increase of pleasure. This is a brilliant polemic from a groundbreaking radical intellectual.