English language
Published Sept. 1, 2004
A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (French: Mille plateaux) is a 1980 book by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. It is the second and final volume of their collaborative work Capitalism and Schizophrenia. While the first volume, Anti-Oedipus (1972), sought to "short-circuit" a developing "bureaucracy of analytic reason" in France (between leftist political parties and psychoanalysis), A Thousand Plateaus was created as a "positive exercise" in nomadology and rhizomatic philosophy.The book has been considered to be a major statement of post-structuralism and postmodernism, especially starting in the late 20th century. Brian Massumi's English translation was published in 1987, a year after the twelfth "plateau" was published separately in English as Nomadology: The War Machine (New York: Semiotext[e], 1986).