"'Stuart Elden's analytic portrait of Michel Foucault's final years dramatically testifies to the developing strength and power of critical observation that defined his writing and reflection after the ""turn"" to sexuality. Elden integrates, brilliantly, the new Foucauldian topics - governmentality, a concern with neoliberalism and contemporary economic thought - with persistent intellectual principles of speaking truth to power. Elden's own thinking sensitively embodies the best critical resources of our period in this elegant consideration, which belongs on the shelves of serious scholars and students alike.' Paul A. Bové, University of Pittsburgh and Editor, boundary 2 'Elden has produced a masterful text that reconstructs how a ""thinker"" thinks between failure and success, between the possible and the as-yet unimaginable. This is philosophical inspiration at its most poetic height. Elden teaches us to read Foucault in a new way.' Eduardo Mendieta, Penn State University ""fascinating"" The Nation"