This work is a landmark in modern social thought, a turning point in the thinking of our time.
- Raymond Williams,
The <i>Critique</i> is essential to any serious understanding of Sartre.
- George Steiner,
Sartre, political activist, playwright, novelist, existentialist philosopher, biographer and literary critic, was considered one of the leading interpreters of the post-war generation's world view.
Guardian
Long regarded as one of France's reigning intellectuals, Sartre contributed profoundly to the social consciousness of the post-World War II generation.
New York Times
One of the most brilliant and versatile writers as well as one of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century.
Times
"Unique among this century's great writers, Sartre - especially in his <i>Critique II</i> -points towards understandings and actions which may possibly return the world to its creators and so let there be a future."
- Ronald Aronson,
Sartre's formal aim was to establish the dialectical intelligibility of history itself, as what he called 'a totalisation without a totaliser'. But, at the same time, his substantive concern was the structure of class struggle and the fate of mass movements of popular revolt, from the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century to the Russian and Chinese revolutions in the twentieth: their ascent, stabilisation, petrification and decline, in a world still overwhelmingly dominated by scarcity.
Translated by Quintin Hoare and Alan Sheridan-Smith.