Alice,
Unfortunately I deleted your note already and cannot recall if you
specified a particular academic background. Is that important? I think
it is. And here's why!
If you understand Foucault's work as a reaction to the tradition of
philosophy, then one's grasp of Foucault will be affected by one's
acquaintance with "the tradition." The point is, if one has
some experience with that tradition, it may be easier to understand
Foucault in comparison with that tradition. So....
An interesting book is C. G. Prado's *Descartes and Foucault: A
Contrastive Introduction* (don't have the other biblio details handy).
The book is written for novices to Foucault (and, I suppose, novices to
Descartes, for that matter!) It is handy, as an intro to Foucault book,
as a corrective to those who have laboured under the Cartesian legacy,
and, as an intro to philosophy book, as a warning of the one-sidedness
that one is generally to expect in traditional depts. of philosophy!
Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
North York, Ontario
Canada
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