“What the Foucault?” and Other After-Dinner Musings

Michel Foucault

Twenty-five years ago, Marshall Sahlins, professor of anthropology emeritus at the University of Chicago, devised some bons mots to deliver after a dinner at the Association of Social Anthropologists in Great Britain. They were soon collected and published in a book called What the Foucault?, now out in its updated fifth edition. A selection of entries appears below:

Some Laws of Civilization

First law