Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. He held a chair in the history of systems of thought at the Collège de France and lectured at universities throughout the world. The New Press has published his books Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology; Ethics; Power; The Essential Foucault; and The Chomsky-Foucault Debate (with Noam Chomsky). Foucault's other books include Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, The Order of Things, and The History of Sexuality.

James D. Faubion is a professor of anthropology at Rice University. He is the author of The Shadows and Lights of Waco and Modern Greek Lessons and the editor of Michel Foucault's Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology and Power, both available from The New Press.

This collection draws together Foucault's contributions to what he saw as the still-underdeveloped practice of political analysis. Containing Foucault's important later writings, "Power" highlights the domains the philosopher helped to make part of the core agenda of Western political culture: medicine, prisons, psychiatry and sexuality.