'In this, the final year of his lectures at the College de France, Michel Foucault reaches more deeply into the foundations of Western thought than ever. Emphasizing parrhesia, the ancient practice of speaking truth to power, he shows how it is a practice of the care of the self, and in so doing, demonstrates how the dictum 'know oneself' is only a part of our philosophical inheritance. This is an astonishing conclusion to the life's work of one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers.' - Thomas Dumm, Amherst College, USA
'In his powerful final course of lectures, expertly edited by Frederic Gros and sympathetically translated by Graham Burchell, Foucault provides an explicitly political focus to his work on parrhesia. He offers readings of a range of texts, of which those of the Apology and the Cynics are especially insightful. It is impossible to read these lectures without an eye to the links between his work and his life, but Foucault's focus remains on the material at hand and his long-running interest in the interrelations of truth, power and the subject.' - Stuart Elden, Durham University, UK