In the words of Michel Foucault: 'I should have written you after my first reading of The Living Currency; it was already breath-taking and I should have responded. After reading it a few more times, I know it is the best book of our times. One has the feeling that everything that matters in a way or another - Blanchot, Bataille, Beyond Good and Evil also - was insidiously going on in this text, but now, it is said - and so well said ... . This was what one should have thought - desire, value, and simulacrum - the triangle that dominates us and has undoubtedly constituted us for centuries, in our history. ... Without you, Pierre, we could have only opposed ourselves against this truth that Sade has spoken out once for all and that no one before you has turned around, that no one truly has approached. ... What you have done for us goes far beyond our thanks and acknowledgements.' Letter to Pierre Klossowski from Michel Foucault, winter 1970.