When he died of an AIDS-related condition in 1984, Michel Foucault had become the most influential French philosopher since the end of World War II. His powerful studies of the creation of modern medicine, prisons, psychiatry, and other methods of classification have had a lasting impact on philosophers, historians, critics, and novelists the world over. As public as he was in his militant campaigns on behalf of prisoners, dissidents, and homosexuals, he shrouded his private life in mystery.

In The Lives of Michel Foucault - written with the full cooperation of Daniel Defert, Foucault's former lover - David Macey gives the richest account to date of Foucault's life and world, informed as it is by the complex issues arising from his writings.