Miller gives us the portrait of a vibrant, incandescent, fearless, and luminous mind--yes, perhaps self-destructive and all too human, but one that can never be accused of banality, mediocrity, pettiness, or naiveté.
-- New York Times Book Review

[A] bold and brilliant reconstruction of Foucault's life and thought...Miller's argument is persuasive.
-- Newsweek

Probably the best general introduction to Foucault's later thinking.
-- Washington Post Book World

Miller's controversial book is the product of prodigious research...[H]e discusses madness, death, and homosexuality, and particularly sadomasochism in great, graphic, almost sensational detail.
-- New Republic

James Miller's impressively documented study of Foucault's life in philosophy is an electric, disturbing, and brilliantly provocative work, truly worthy of its subject, and essential companion to a reading of late twentieth century Western culture.
-- Edward W. Said, author of Culture and Imperialism and Orientalism

James Miller may shock some readers with his way of talking about both sex and philosophy, Nietzsche and AIDS, theories of knowledge and sadomasochism, but out of these contrasting elements he constructs a heroic life, one that illustrates the very notion Foucault developed late in his career, the idea that a philosopher's life should be exemplary and that he himself should be a lover of wisdom, a seeker of truth.
-- Edmund White, author of A Boy's Own Story