title: On the State: Lectures at the Collge de France, 1989 - 1992
author: Pierre Bourdieu
description: This is a major book for the social sciences. Unlike the majority of books on the state, it actually provides a basis for future empirical work on how states operate. Of the three kinds of books that have relevance for the academic readerbooks to skim, books to read, and books to studyit is emphatically a book to study. One that is bold, profound and enlightening.<br /><i><b>European Journal of Sociology</b></i><br /><br />''The state is this institution that has the extraordinary power of producing a socially ordered world without necessarily giving orders, without exerting a constant coercion there isn?t a policeman behind every car, as people often say. This kind of quasi- magical effect deserves explanation. All other effects; military coercion, economic coercion by way of taxation are in my view secondary in relation to this. I believe that the initial accumulation, contrary to what is maintained by a certain materialist tradition (materialist in the impoverished sense of the term), is an accumulation of symbolic capital: the whole of my work is intended to produce a materialist theory of the symbolic, which is traditionally opposed to the material.''<br /> <b>Pierre Bourdieu</b><br /><br /> "This enormous collection of lecture notes could make you feel lost in different countries and different historical periods, but it is successful in sounding very coherent with a very fluent narrative, and it is not distracting for the reader. These lectures certainly present an illuminating and broad content that any social scientist - not necessarily political scientists - should benefit from when reading this book."<br /><b> Political Studies Review<br /><br /></b>"Bourdieus insights break fresh ground in the critical understanding of the state and its perpetration of power.This book impels us to consider the state in its all nuances, while unworking the constructivism immanent in its normativization, and should be of interest to social and political scientists."<br /><b>Avishek Ray, Rouya Turkiyyah</b><b><br /></b>
zlib_text:  Lectures on the Will to Know  
  
   Also in this series: 
   SOCIETY MUST BE DEFENDED 
   (North America & Canada) 
   ABNORMAL 
   (North America & Canada) 
   HERMENEUTICS OF THE SUBJECT 
   (North America & Canada) 
   PSYCHIATRIC POWER 
   SECURITY, TERRITORY, POPULATION 
   THE BIRTH OF BIOPOLITICS 
   THE GOVERNMENT OF SELF AND OTHERS 
   THE COURAGE OF TRUTH 
   Forthcoming in this series: 
   PENAL THEORIES AND INSTITUTIONS 
   THE PUNITIVE SOCIETY 
   ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE LIVING 
   SUBJECTIVITY AND TRUTH 
  
   MICHEL FOUCAULT 
   Lectures on the Will to Know 
  LECTURES AT THE COLL È GE DE FRANCE 
  1970–1971 
  and 
   Oedipal Knowledge 
   Edited by  Daniel  Defert 
   General Editors:  Fran ç ois  Ewald and  Alessandro  Fontana 
   English Series Editor:  Arnold I.  Davidson 
   TRANSLATED BY  GRAHAM  BURCHELL 
   
   
  This book is supported by the 
  French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 
  as part of the Burgess programme 
  run by the Cultural Department of 
  the French Embassy in London. 
  (www.frenchbooknews.com)
  
   LECTURES ON THE 