ABSTRACT
After Michel Foucault wrote the first volume of his History of Sexuality, he discovered that he could not adequately treat sexuality in modern history without first returning to antiquity. This discovery necessitated a change in approach and so slowed his progress that volumes two and three did not appear for another eight years (Lloyd: 25). The difference in tone between volumes one and two is evident to even the casual reader: the sweeping generalizations and scanty documentation of volume one have been superseded by a respectful approach to texts.1 Indeed, so carefully does Foucault tiptoe from text to text in the subsequent volumes that admirers of his previous work may find his style plodding. More important, they will find that Foucault’s earlier interest in developing an ‘archaeological’ theory of discourse has been drastically modified by attention to the social practices that link power, knowledge, and the body (Dreyfus and Rabinow, pp.xxiv-xxv, 56, 98, 102-5, 112, 175).
