Michel Foucault · 1967
A historical analysis of how Western society has defined and treated mental illness from the Middle Ages to the modern era.
Stephen Kotkin values the foundational insights it provides regarding how power functions in daily life.
A speaker recommends a book written by someone else.
“so I went up to him as a naive with the this book Madness and Civilization which we had been forced to read and I started asking him questions…”
Why: It provided foundational insights into how micropower functions in daily life.
Stephen Kotkin, Guest on Conversations with TylerStephen Kotkin on Stalin, Power, and the Art of Biography
Other books cited in the same episodes.
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Milan Kundera
Discussed together in: Stephen Kotkin on Stalin, Power, and the Art of Biography (Conversations with Tyler)
Life and Fate
Vasily Grossman
Discussed together in: Stephen Kotkin on Stalin, Power, and the Art of Biography (Conversations with Tyler)