“David Detmer’s Sartre Explained is undoubtedly the best introduction to Jean-Paul Sartre’s ideas available today. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Sartre.”
—Matthew Eshleman, University of North Carolina at Wilmington

“Detmer explores the implications of Sartre’s work both for ourselves and for our world, and in so doing he makes Sartre come alive. Sartre’s most complicated philosophical doctrines are rendered comprehensible without sacrificing rigor, and his most counterintuitive political positions are shown to be more compelling than they are often taken to be.”
—David Sherman, author of Sartre and Adorno

“Detmer has managed to boil down Sartre without losing any of the flavor. This readable book, written in lucid and lively prose, straightforwardly addresses the hard, important issues in Sartre.”
—T Storm Heter, author of Sartre’s Ethics of Engagement

“Detmer’s Sartre Explained convincingly demonstrates how important Sartre is for us today, and places Sartre front and center as a giant of the twentieth century whose stature will be felt well beyond the twenty-first. Detmer’s deft treatment of Sartre’s most abstruse ideas, and his use of creative examples to tackle difficult problems and concepts, makes this a most welcome and inviting guide for those unfamiliar with Sartre’s work. Scholars will appreciate the depth of analysis and rigor.”
—Gail E. Linsenbard, author of An Investigation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Posthumously Published Notebooks for an Ethics

"Detmer (philosophy, Purdue U. Calumet) introduces the work of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), explaining how his writings on existentialism, his fiction and plays, and his political activism were all part of his attempt to describe the salient features of human existence such as freedom, responsibility, emotions, human relations, work, and death."
—Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR