For centuries, medicine aimed to treat abnormalities. But today
normality itself is open to medical modification. Equipped with a new
molecular understanding of bodies and minds, and new techniques for
manipulating basic life processes at the level of molecules, cells, and
genes, medicine now seeks to manage human vital processes. The Politics
of Life Itself offers a much-needed examination of recent developments
in the life sciences and biomedicine that have led to the widespread
politicization of medicine, human life, and biotechnology.
Avoiding the hype of popular science and the pessimism of most social
science, Nikolas Rose analyzes contemporary molecular biopolitics,
examining developments in genomics, neuroscience, pharmacology, and
psychopharmacology and the ways they have affected racial politics,
crime control, and psychiatry. Rose analyzes the transformation of
biomedicine from the practice of healing to the government of life; the
new emphasis on treating disease susceptibilities rather than disease;
the shift in our understanding of the patient; the emergence of new
forms of medical activism; the rise of biocapital; and the mutations in
biopower. He concludes that these developments have profound
consequences for who we think we are, and who we want to be.