Michel Foucault claimed that the term biopolitics can be fully understood only within the context of modern forms of governing society. From this perspective, the development of modern medical knowledge, the re-organization of the hospital as a health institution, the growing attention to issues related to birth and population, and the rise of biological racism can be attributed to the influence of economic rationality on the most influential political strategies. In this book, Marzocca further explores the crucial role that the family structure has played throughout the history of biopolitics, explaining how family is firstly a place of government of life as well as a means to extend various forms of biopower to the whole society.

By analysing the works of key figures in the debate on biopolitics – such as Agamben, Negri, Esposito, Rose, Cooper, Lemke, among others – this volume offers a systematic examination of this notion also in relation to the current ecological crisis, addressing fundamental problems of modern and contemporary political thought.