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| The History of Sexuality 1: An Introduction
| | Michel Foucault
| Three volumes of The History of Sexuality were published before Foucault's death in 1984. The 1st & most referenced volume, The Will to Knowledge (previously known as An Introduction in English—Histoire de la sexualité, 1: la volonté de savoir in French) was published in France in 1976 & translated in 1977, focusing primarily on the last two centuries, & the functioning of sexuality as an analytics of power related to the emergence of a science of sexuality (scientia sexualis) & the emergence of biopower in the West. In this volume he questions the "repressive hypothesis", the widespread belief that we have, particularly since the 19th century, repressed our natural sexual drives. He shows that what we think of as repression of sexuality actually constituted sexuality as a core feature of our identities, & produced a proliferation of discourse on the subject.
In Volume One, Foucault points to a watershed in human history, between the Counter-Reformation & the Industrial Revolution, where the Catholic church & state sought to control people's sexuality for the stability of the church & the benefit of the economy, respectively. He points to a realignment of the Vatican's views on sexuality during this period as an attempt to make people feel the need to attend confession more often, thus increasing the power of the church. Simultaneously, he highlights a shift in focus by the French Government from viewing citizens as "subjects" to "a population", a scientific concept that could be manipulated according to the needs of the economy. This was a trend that occurred across Europe as the Industrial Revolution spread
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