© 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 16, 2, 299–302 www.palgrave.com/journals Review Foucault and neo-liberalism Michael C. Behrent and Daniel Zamora (eds.) Polity Press, Cambridge, 2015, 152pp., ISBN: 978-1509501779 Daniel Zamora and Michael C. Behrent’s edited volume Foucault and Neoliberalism is concerned with the intellectual ambiguity of the later Foucault in relation to what was then nascent neo-liberalism. At its core is the uneasiness that a critic of neo-liberalism should feel when encountering Foucault’s presentation of neo-liberalism. The primary focus is therefore the intellectual backdrop of the Collège de France lectures, published in English as Security, Territory, Population and The Birth of Biopolitics, as well as various other interjections of this period and the second and third volumes of The History of Sexuality. The question is an important one because it tackles head-on Foucault’s presentation of neo-liberalism, of which he is ambivalent at best. The essays in this collection are particularly pertinent for academic circles in which, as Zamora notes in his introduction, ‘[Foucault] has acquired almost saint-like status’ that is also part of the ‘critical Left’ (p. 2). This is not simply an attempt to paint Foucault as a neo-liberal or to postulate the question of whether he was for or against neo-liberalism, but rather to understand the intellectual context of Foucault’s commentary on neo-liberalism. This is something that the editors contend is often lacking, particularly in American scholarship (p. 26). In this sense, the essays in this volume constitute a rich contribution to recent intellectual history and political theory that will be an important reference for both Foucault scholars and those interested in the historical development of neo-liberal thought. The volume is book-ended with an introduction and conclusion, written by the editors, that frame the essays within. This gives the volume a narrative that so many edited volumes lack. Also included is a short essay by Foucault that originally appeared in Le Nouvelle Observateur in 1977, in which he glowingly reviews Glucksmann’s (1980) The Master Thinkers. His endorsement of Glucksmann’s attack on the politics of the Left, as a system of domination, in turn seems to open Foucault up to thinking about contemporary politics in a different way. This is the lens through which we are asked to view Foucault’s engagement with neo-liberalism. This is an important point because it puts Foucault’s ambivalence towards neo- liberalism into a context in which it is a proxy for a critique of Leftist politics. It was therefore a strategic intervention into the politics of the late 1970s through which Contemporary Political Theory (2017) 16, 299–302. doi:10.1057/cpt.2016.23; advance online publication 24 May 2016