As the quote on the cover suggests, this may very well be "the most important work of Sartre's to be translated since Being and Nothingness." To be sure, The Critique of Dialectical Reason may be also, or even The Family Idiot. But it must also be recalled that Search for a Method, while first published as an occasional piece for a Czech journal, was latter published as the introduction to The Critique, and, moreover, Sartre states that The Family Idiot is in fact the sequel to Search in the preface of the former tome. Indeed, both of these works are much more comprehensible after having read Search. The reason being is that Search outlines the method and general strategy utilized in both of those books (and in Saint Genet to some extent even though it came out prior). The method is of course the progressive regressive method and the strategy is a quasi anthropology mixed occasionally with a new hybrid of existential psychoanalysis. As the two major works that came out of Search can attest - those being The Critique and FI - his method is equally accessible to both large scale cultural descriptions (the Critique) and in depth profiles of a single individual. The former case asks 'what are the conditions that have created modern western man as we know him,' the latter asks what are the conditions that have created this particular individual.'

For those who are aquainted with Sartre's earlier existential writings, this kind of thinking may seem altogether foreign. The old Sartre would have been loathe to suggest any form of conditioning or that one has been made in some way or other. But, this is part of the reason why many feel he abandoned his existentialism. I, on the other hand, do not feel that he did at all. In fact I suggest his existentialism is richer and his arguments more tenable in his later phase. As Sartre himself suggested in an interview late in his life, "life taught me the force of circumstances." It will be circumstances, both grand and minute, that all go into forming the people we are, both collectively and individually. Circumstances are, in other words, the factical moments out of which our contingent choices are made. Thus, Search sets out to examine a methodology that can account for both the factical and contingent, the necessary and the random, in the making of a people, person, or culture.

By Sartre standards this is a relatively easy read with a big payoff. As I mentioned, it is crucial to understanding the major works that would follow, as well as the occasional and literary works that would follow, e.g. his many writings on politics and even plays such as Condemned of Altona. But I also feel it stands well by itself and I do not feel that the reader necessarily have a background in Being and Nothingness or earlier Sartre to get something out of it. Indeed, it is also an excellent source for those seeking alternatives to the various more popular forms of psychoanalysis as well as cultural studies. Sartre was a maverick, no doubt, and often he failed in his attempts to construct a solid theory. But here, in Search, I believe that Sartre is at his best and most profound.

Professor Barnes easily makes clear Satre's works even through his haze of Extentialism. As Sartre gave us his posture of dialectical materialism, Professor Barnes clearly explains Sartre. Thank you Professor Barnes, and, do it again and again, please.

"Search for a Method" was originally intended as a postcript to the 1960 "Critique of Dialectical Reason," but it became the intro & then was published separately. Its thesis, "Cultural order is irreducible to natural order," forms the basis for an examination of contemporary Marxism, which Sartre calls "arrested." Between "Being and Nothingness" and the often puzzling posthumous material, this is the best and most concise intro to Sartre by Sartre. Kudos to Professor Barnes for another outstanding translation!

I read this book in one sitting and found it to be very informative. In outlining the basis for an existentialist psychoanalysis, Sartre gives interesting and riveting existential perspectives on the human situation. I would recommend anyone with an interest in philosophy, psychology, and the human situation in general to give this book a try.

If you enjoyed P. Hazel's book you might also enjoy Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series. Both series rely heavily on rambling Welsh/Celtic mythology. I, though, don't care for either!

I am a Welsh/British/Celtic mythology nut, and I LOVE stuff like that. So when i saw this book! I went nuts. I couldn't find it at the bookstore, so I got it from the library (thankfully) Here's what I thought: I HATED IT!!! The character, Finn (Herwad, whatever) had no personality at all. The plot was unsure of itself. The other characters were wanting. When I first read the part about the talking crows, I thought it would be fun and fantasy-ish, but instead it was boring. I know that when you write stuff like this, you need to stay within the boundaries, but not much is known about this stuff, so Mr. Hazel could have made it better. I had to pull through the rest of the book. Finn was kinda dumba nd weak-minded, to me. That's just my opinion. The whole story seemed dark and foreboding, and it was hard to follow. I will definately look for other books. I am SO glad I did not buy this book. If you're looking for GOOD stuff, read/buy _The Mists of Avalon_ by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It changes Celtic mythology as we know it a bit, but stays within the boundaries. It's really good, and it follows the Arthruian legend rather well. Though this book did not satisfy me, I may look for other Paul Hazel works, because if he wrote a bit more cheerfully, the books would be magnificent. I think he should try for other books, and don't get me wrong, some parts of the book were okay, and I DO NOT blame the author.

I agree with the first reviewer: this book is excellent. Very dark, descriptive but not too wordy (for those of you who couldn't stand Peake), not formulaic at all. Makes you stop and think, makes you stop and feel gloomy, but leaves you satisfied, wanting more. (Keep some sugar handy in case the gloom gets to your head and you need to perk up, though.)

About a "boy coming of age in a dark time" alright! :) Buy it, if you can get your hands on it; disregard the terrible paperback cover you may see at some used bookstores. You can tell Hazel graduated from Yale. The guy's a genius.

I thought this was a good book. Why the heck is it out of print? I think most of the fantasy genre is really crappy formula written. Everything since Tolkein has the same Tolkeinish plot, except Yearwood, which is not so much an epic about fantasy and killing the great evil plague. It was about a young boy coming of age in a dark time. Can't wait to read the other two books.

This book is an excellent resource for information about Ancient History. We have been using it to fill the gaps in our study of Ancient Civilizations. The drawing are realistic and help us to visualize all the artifacts of the time eras. We have been using the library copy, but have decided to purchase our own copy.

This is a book which takes constant re-reading and reading within context: that is, pick one theme, and read the entire book in search of all Sartre has to say about that theme. This book is completely indispensible to anyone wishing to deal in post-modern philosophy and existentialism: it is a secular philosopher's bible. Dealing in systematic brilliance throughout the experience of life, Sartre delves into psychology and theological ideas while remaining true to his own purely atheistic and philosophical roots.

Dense? Sure... but illuminating examples help to describe the deep thought, almost as parables in the Synoptic Gospels. The crag in the rock, the meeting at the cafe, all these verbal illustrations work into the text very well. Personally, I love the sections on the anguish of man when faced with the facticity of his own freedom. The dualism expressed by Sartre is a theme in philosophy which I usually don't enjoy (like any good post-Hegelian, I enjoy synthesizing opposites), he is able to pull it off with ease and magnificence. Though it is not as eloquent as the existentialism expressed by Albert Camus, it is every bit as enlightening and valuable.

Most people object to its density because they are used to the existential wanderings of the modern novel - Camus' The Stranger, or Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment - but this is the philosophical reflection of the situation of man expressed by such work. Sartre states early on that he is not performing an objective analysis of humankind, but rather a biased and understandably nuanced descriptionof ontology from the perspective of the modern man.

Brilliant and exciting, Being and Nothingness is an essential part of anyone philosopher's bookshelf!

It is often said that Sartre's premier text is a misreading of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit. Misreading because Heidegger searched for a way of doing philosophy that freed the tradition from the Cartesion subject/object duality, while Sartre embraces that tradition.

Does this mean that Sartre is too retro to be interesting, or that he is really only a "romantic rationalist" as one commentator claims? Perhaps.

And yet...and yet the work continues to exert a strong fascination. Let's suppose that you are a person who struggles to do away with belief (and recognizing that this is different from, for example, not believing in a god. It is more a negation of the will to believe.) Let's suppose that you have no longer any presence with which to ground your life, but find instead that your interpretations are interpretations as far as you can take them. Let's suppose that you find in ethics a compilation of various peoples' prejudices.

Given these originary hypotheses, what sort of ontic or ontological claims might you make? Being and Nothingness explores this question, and more. It is still a philosophy book worth reading in a scientific age.

I agree with those who complain about the book's verbosity, but the ideas in it more than compensate. There are some decent summaries of Sartre's philosophy but nothing that compares with the original. I disagree with those who say that it is necessary to first read the works of other existenialists. One of the great things about this book is that, unlike many other philosophers, Sarte is unashamed of acknowledging those who influenced his thinking, particularly Husserl and Heidegger.

My greatest criticism of the book is that it is unnecessarily pessimistic, with such statements as "life is a useless passion". This is not warranted by the general philosophy. I find the notion that we are creaters of meaning to be liberating. Sartre gives a brilliant philosophic interpretation of sado-masochism, but makes the mistake of assuming that sado-masochism forms the entire basis for human relationships. The greatest joys in life come from our ability to commuicate with and share experiences with others. Being the gregarious person that he was I am sure that in his personal life this was true of Sartre as well.

The Delcourt's book is a hoot.

It is premised upon a recent publication known as the "U.S. National Assessment" on global warming. The backchatter about this document is astounding; it has been well-documented that the climate models which serve as its base actually perform worse than random numbers when applied to the US in the last several decades.

Further, the climate models that were used in this Assessment aren't even representative of most other models. I have read that Assessment, now available from Cambridge Press. It considered many models, but chose two--which, respectively, predict the most extreme departures in temperature and rainfall over the US, compared to the many others considered. Not only are the models that serve as the basis for the Delcourt's book bad, they aren't even representative!

I offer this notion to prospective purchasers of this book: either the Delcourt's knew this, and didn't tell you, which makes them deceptive, or they did not, which makes them incompetent.

I work for a major government climate lab, and I can tell you that this book is a typical global warming joke. Unfortunately, the political climate is so bad that we can't talk about this much in public. Too bad, because the planet is really warming a bit. Would like to see a more honest book here, which admits to warming and to the limits of our science. My little research on this shows the bestselling title under global warming has the weird title "Satanic Gases", but looks much more interesting. Maybe that's why people are buying it and not this silly book by the Delcourt Bobos.

This is a book that will be welcomed by millions of environmentally conscious readers concerned with the range of potential social, economic and political issues stemming from the profound effects of global warming. Many of us are already concerned with the ways in which we may potentially be affected both individually and as members of a society that will literally be forced to deal with the truly massive related dislocations and changes posed by the so-called "Greenhouse Effect" in the coming decades. The authors of this book have addressed themselves to a myriad of potential issues and a range of appropriate strategies for such factors as changes in weather patterns, economics, retirement possibilities, and other such phenomena related to the massive changes in climate that are associated with the Greenhouse Effect.

Thus, Paul and Hazel Delcourt, both paleo-ecologists teaching at the University of Tennessee, present the results of a massive three-year national study, The National Climate Assessment, by thousands of scientists to project the potential environmental changes in this country over the next hundred years. The authors then match the results of this massive work with a range of demographic studies that lead them to conclude that wide-ranging economic, political, and social change will result. Therefore, "Living Well In The Age Of Global Warming" provides the reader with a fascinating look at the range of possibilities that exist for one to "live well and prosper' in the radically changed ecological, social, and personal circumstances of a world undergoing radical and unavoidable change.

Indeed, while the serious reader may find fault with the authors' particulars in dealing with the range of alternatives available, one can hardly fault their central point, which is that the world will be radically changed both in terms of its climate and our potential cultural responses to those changes. Thus, whether discussing changing weather patterns (and the associated changes in storm tracks now predicted by many meteorologists) or exploring changes in temperature zones to the degree that millions may be forced to vacate areas like Georgia as they turn positively tropical, this is fascinating reading. They also discuss potential changes in forest cover, livable habitats, and many other related subjects. According to the authors, each of these factors will become increasingly important in determining the overall quality of life possibilities as global warming proceeds.

In essence, the authors have created an entertaining and informative book that openly discusses what the consequences of global warming may portend for each of us in practical and understandable terms, and in so doing they have rendered an important service to us all. While I admit that I did not like the "self-help to financial success" tone the prose sometimes degenerates into, I found myself so fascinated by other aspects of their careful thought that helped me to overcome any minor trepidation I had regarding the book. One can hardly argue with their central thesis; that the comfortable world we know is vanishing before our eyes, and that the shape of the one to come will be largely determined by the effects that global warming has on our society and our environment.

The book deals with a variety of different issue and a whole range of potential individual responses that the intelligent and savvy person can use to negotiate his or her way through the coming hardships. While I do not feel that this book is anything like the comprehensive "bible" activists need to carry on in the difficult days and years to come, it is certainly a provocative and thoughtful excursion into a subject matter few have dared to broach to date. Hopefully it provides us with just the opening salvo of what one prays will become both a national and international debate on what each of us needs to do to live more responsibally on the delicate skin of this, our living planet. I recommend it without hesitation; enjoy!

Im sorry but if you were expecting a thrilling conclusion to Yearwood and Undersea, Winterking is not it. Basically, Hazel abandons the celtic/fantastic genre for some modern story about some people in a house arguing about an inheritance. If there is subtle meaning to it, I didnt get it. Its almost like comparing Queen of the Damned to Interview with a Vampire and the Vampire Lestat (although this is much much worse -- not even related). Anyway, I could not even bring myself to go beyond page 10. Truly sad since I thought Yearwood was great and Undersea decent.