Foucaults personal and political experimentation its ambiguous legacy and the rise of neoliberal politicsPart intellectual history part critical theory The Last Man Takes LSD challenges the way we think about both Michel Foucault and modern progressive politics One fateful day in MayFoucault dropped acid in the southern California desert In letters reproduced here he described it as among the most important events of his life one which would lead him to completely rework his History of Sexuality That trip helped redirect Foucaults thought and contributed to a tectonic shift in the intellectual life of the era He came to reinterpret the social movements of Mayand reposition himself politically in France embracing antitotalitarian currents and becoming a critic of the welfare stateMitchell Dean and Daniel Zamora examine the full historical context of the turn in Foucaults thought which included studies of the Iranian revolution and French socialist politics through which he would come