Power. Knowledge. Governance.: From the Age of Enlightenment to Artificial Intelligence

By Dominic Hewson

This book explores how, in a precarious world, even our most fundamental assumptions are subject to challenge and change. Confronted by economic, environmental and existential crises, humanity is once again undergoing a profound reappraisal of its place and purpose. Drawing on the ideas of Michel Foucault, the book traces the evolving relationship between power, knowledge, and governance in the modern era, from the Enlightenment to the age of artificial intelligence. As it chronicles the ideas, actors and events that have shaped our world, it outlines the development of four overlapping periods of modern thought: atomistic, mechanistic, organic, and dataistic. Moving through the centuries - from early industrial capitalism to neoliberalism and the emergence of data-driven systems of thought and control - it charts the transformation of human assumptions, aspirations and the art of governance

As we move into an uncertain future, the book identifies the rise of new technologies and strategies that conceive and conduct us in radical new ways. Establishing the parameters of a new episteme, these knowledges reveal new realities and raise the possibility of alternative forms of humanity.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3032151252
• ISBN13: 9783032151254
• Release Date: May 2026
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 274 Pages