The History of Sexuality: 3: The Care of the Self

The third volume of Foucault’s pioneering analysis of sexuality and power relations, now reissued in Penguin Modern Classics

In the third volume of his acclaimed examination of sexuality in modern Western society, Foucault investigates the Golden Age of Rome to reveal a decisive break from the classical Greek version of sexual pleasure. Exploring the moral reflections of philosophers and physicians of the era, he identifies a growing anxiety over sexual activity and its consequences. At the core of this transformation Foucault found the principles of the ‘care of the self’- the belief that the self is an object of knowledge to be cultivated over time, and the implications this has for ethics and behaviour.