Discipline And Punish: The Birth of the Prison

Foucault traces how punishment changed from a public spectacle in the Middle Ages to a system of reform in the eighteenth century, when growing dissent and economic change called for closer control over individuals. The book follows the development of the Western prison, police organisations, and the legal and administrative hierarchies used for social control.

A central argument is that schools, factories, barracks and hospitals share an organisation that allows a person's time and space to be controlled hour by hour. In this way the book explains the growth of what it calls disciplinary society as a whole.

The book suits readers of social theory, criminology and history. Edition note: published by Viking in 1977, 372 pages, ISBN-13 9780713910407.