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| Birth of the Clinic, The: An Archaeology of Medical Perception | 
 enlarge | Author: Michel Foucault
Publisher: Vintage
Discount Category: Book
Selling Price: $14.95
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Customer Ratings:  7 comments
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (pounds): 0.6
Dimensions (inch): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0679753346
Dewey Decimal Number: 610.9
EAN: 9780679753346
Publication Date: March 29, 1994
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: light corner wear - 1 page has a corner crease
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About freedom September 8, 2006
2 out of 2 found this comment useful.
Birth of the Clinic is a partner to Discipline and Punish: Birth of the Prison. They are both about political economy and the irony of how the modern 'free' world is as confining as previous historical eras just in an opposite way. This is kind of Foucault's whole mission, to show us just how confined we really are and wake us up to reality. But he is always subtle about it. In a way his 'philosophy' and 'methodology' and the wild theoretical tangents the academies have taken it to, are a mask for his very powerful and even dangerous political indictments. In Discipline and Punish (Surveil in French) Foucault shows historically how individual time and space have been controlled by the ever evolving, profit-driven, techno-efficiency of the panopticon-state and the distracted aquiescence of its subjects. In Birth of the Clinic he will show historically how the individual person and their body have become property of the state via consensus (law) and the same somnambulent aquiescence. In many ways Foucault is a major conservative showing us empirically, through historical evidence, how the power-play of today is an interiorization of past power-relationships, interiorized to the point of invisibility and largely unacknowledged by the manipulated masses.
Read Kuhn first, then Foucault June 15, 2005
2 out of 5 found this comment useful.
Wow, Foucault is truly a literary genius. Getting a small glimpse into his wonderful genius is pleasure enough to warrant reading this book. However that said The Birth of the Clinic lacks in certain areas. Obviously, Foucault is writing in the postmodern era, thus his ideas are not nearly as groundbreaking as they would have been had he been writing 30-40 years earlier. This book, as Foucault explicitly states, is not so much about the birth of the clinic, as it is about the birth of ideas and knowledge - how conceptions of good and bad science come to be. In that regard the book, unfortunately the book falters in comparison to some others. The one I have in mind is Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions". The main difference between the two is in time of release. Kuhn's book was released immediately after the Second World War. Subsequently, due to the nascent phase of the field, his book sets the foundation for the literature to follow in its tradition - such as The Birth of the Clinic. Therefore, readers interested in the development of scientific knowledge would be better served to pick up Kuhn's book first, then move onto The Birth of the Clinic.
While an introduction to the topic is somewhat helpful, the value of this book must not be overlooked. Your impression of medicine will not be the same.
Sound historical interpretation, hold the postmodernism May 10, 2002
17 out of 19 found this comment useful.
Foucault has been interpreted in the US as a pretentious standard-bearer of postmodernism - as an almost "evil" figure who threatens to undermine the foundations of Western knowledge with his problematisation of conceptual categories. It doesn't help that his work has been taken up to justify just about any subversive perspective, whether well-conceived or not. This is only a pitifully small perspective on the man and his work. Foucault should be seen first as a historian, not a philosopher; second, his work should be lauded for the contribution it makes to Western knowledge rather than the superficial "threats" it makes to perspectives whose time has come in any event. Every revolution of perception has been accompanied by vociferous resistance, yet a great many of those sounding their disapproval loudly probably don't really understand what the late Michel was really on to.
The Birth of the Clinic, MF's most accessible work, is a well-researched, brilliantly interpreted account of the development of the clinical "gaze" in the wake of modern medical knowledge and practice. Foucault problematises the institution of the clinic, showing how clinical perception is the result of a historically specific constellation of knowledge and power. His ultimately emancipatory analysis is substantiated every step of the way with textual and historical examples. No metaphysics here, just a radical questioning of the nature of knowledge within institutional practice.
So, sorry (Objectivists!) if this is too much to handle. It's good research, plain and simple. Don't dismiss Foucault as a lightweight postmodernist - try to see him where he would situate himself, in the tradition of reflexive historical sociology.
Structural analysis of the origins of clinical medicine January 28, 2000
13 out of 30 found this comment useful.
Here is a commentary:Reviewer: A reader from California May 17, 1998 "Again, Foucault shatters our illusions.This book examines our cultural tendency to elevate the authority of the physician..." This reviwer's summary of the book is incorrect because the work is not a study of power or "authority" (themes which would be important in Foucault's later works). In "The Birth of the Clinic" we see how Foucault MIGHT HAVE made a crticism of clinical medicine as an authoritarian institution, but in fact this is NOT the focus of the book. This book is not the attempt to dispel a "myth", it is a description of the reality of the development of the clinical gaze as a discursive formation distinct from its historical predecessors. Reviewer: spandex9@aol.com from Barbaraville, Manitoba (Canada) July 21, 1998. "Structures of Perception and Positivism Questioned". This review is much closer to the mark than the first one. In particular, in the second paragraph the reviewer touches on the implications of the development of anatomo-clinical medicine for "the human experience itself". In the conclusion to the book Foucault himself stated that "the experience of individuality in modern culture is linked to the experience of death" and that is one reason why we should be interested in this work. Reviewer: Dr. W Y Wan from Hong Kong "A book with special insight-- one that you cannot miss. I agree that this book can be of value to physicians who are genuinely interested in human welfare, and it's unfortunate that most physicians never study the humanities during their educations.
A book with special insight-- one that you cannot miss September 1, 1999
8 out of 10 found this comment useful.
" The birth of the Clinic " is an attempt by the philosopher and the learned historian to decipher the secret of medical perception. Only when the chaotic and subjective clinical experience is transcended to the objective language, we have the medicine as a scientific subject as today. As a physician myself , I think understanding " clinical gaze " helps me to define the place of modern medicine, of doctors and patients and of medical organisation in this fast changing world.
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