Madness and Civilization: A History of Madness in the Age of Reason (revised translation) Author: [France] Michel Foucault Translator: Liu Beicheng/ Yang Yuanying Publisher: Sanlian Bookstore

This book is the most well-known work of Foucault in the Chinese world and has sold more than 100,000 copies since its publication in 1999.

Roland Barthes said that this book is a cleansing and questioning of knowledge. It returns a fragment of "nature" to history and transforms madness, that is, it turns what we regard as a medical phenomenon into a civilizational phenomenon. In fact, Foucault never defined madness; madness is not an object of cognition, and its history needs to be re-exposed; it can be said that it is nothing more than this cognition itself; madness is not a disease, but a sense of alienation that changes over time; Foucault never regarded madness as a functional reality. In his view, it is purely the effect of the combination of rationality and irrationality, the viewer and the viewed.

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a very challenging and rebellious French thinker in the 20th century. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in his youth and later taught at many universities. From 1970, he served as a professor of the history of thought systems at the Collège de France until his death.

Most of Foucault's research is devoted to examining specific history, from which he unearthed many impactful ideological themes and fiercely criticized modern rational discourse; at the same time, Foucault's writing style has a distinct literary color, pays attention to rhetoric, and is full of passion, which is also an important reason why he has a huge influence in Europe and the United States.