Todd McGowan, The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan – Cambridge University Press, July 2025

The difficulty of Jacques Lacan’s thought is notorious. The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan cuts through this difficulty to provide a clear, jargon-free approach to understanding it. The book describes Lacan’s life, the context from which he emerged, and the reception of his theory. Readers will come away with an understanding of concepts such as jouissance, the objet a, and the big Other. The book frames Lacan’s thought in the history of philosophy and explains it through jokes, films, and popular culture. In this light, Lacan becomes a thinker of philosophical importance in his own right, on a par with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Lacan’s great contribution is the introduction of the unconscious into subjectivity, which results in a challenge to both the psychoanalytic establishment and to philosophers. The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan provides readers with a way of understanding the nature of Lacan’s contribution.

• Allows the reader to learn about Jacques Lacan’s theory in an enjoyable manner
• Presents Lacan in relation to the history of philosophy
• Introduces all of Lacan’s key concepts separately in a clear and detailed way

Update September 2025: New Books discussion with Helena Vissing. Thanks to dmf for this link.