Michel Foucault

"Mariana Valverde has written a characteristically erudite and lucidexposition of Foucault’s writings as they bear on criminology and socio-legal studies. Resolving important points of confusion in Foucault scholarship, she develops important new insights into Foucault’s work. Her path-breaking analysis suggests radical revisions to our thinking about the nexus between law and other forms of truth telling. In the process, Foucault’s problematic relationship with criminology is shown to be more complex and ambiguous than most ‘critical’ criminologists have supposed. This is a book whose value and importance far outstrip its brevity."

Pat O'Malley, Honorary Professor, Sydney Law School, The University of Sydney, Australia

"Interpreting elements of Foucault’s vast oeuvre, this book questions standard readings of some key ideas and their relations to one another — sovereignty, discipline, governmentality, biopolitics, pastoral power, avowal. Its succinct expression presents an accessible framework without simplification, and invites its readers to contemplate a critical criminology with and after Foucault."

George Pavlich, Canada Research Chair in Social Theory, Culture and Law and Professor of Law and Sociology, University of Alberta, Canada

"Mariana Valverde discusses how Foucault revolutionized the study of power, prisons and crime in a way that is convincing, highly accessible and sensitive to historical context. Based on an erudite reading of Foucault (often forefronting the recently published and for this reason least discussed lectures) and a wealth of examples, she shows the continued productivity of the approach. The reader gets an unprecedented apprehension of the context-bound ingenuity and the open-ended logic of Foucault’s work within and beyond core areas of criminology."

Magnus Hörnqvist, Associate Professor in Criminology, Stockholm University, Sweden"That Valverde is an expert guide to Foucault’s work and its application is unquestionable. Her command of the field and its many facets is apparent. Moreover, she simultaneously (and very adroitly) avoids burdening the discussions of Foucault’s work with detail, while also ensuring not to oversimplify. This makes understanding Foucault’s work, particularly in an introductory text which covers much ground like this one, significantly easier. Valverde’s coverage of several recently published lecture series and other more obscure or overlooked texts also expands considerably the ways that Foucault’s work may be taken up by others. It not only offers signposts for deepening existing Foucaultian scholarship in criminology and criminal justice but also opens up new possible directions… Valverde has succeeded in drawing together an incredible amount of scholarship and has effortlessly synthesised this to produce an accessible and engaging book. Not only will students and researchers of criminology and socio‐legal studies find something useful in this text but those who are already familiar with Foucault’s work are also bound to gain new insights into the relevance of his work for understanding practices of criminal justice."
Dr Matthew Ball, Queensland University of Technology, Australia, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy