Thought this was pretty interesting. Discovered just how much Sartre was into Marxism. It was most helpful just by getting a taste of his various works or actually, since you kind of need more context for Sartre than a page, it was helpful in knowing his bibliography/what he has written. I haven't read a lot of actual works of Sartre. I don't find him the best writer, but I'm in the middle of several of his books.
I didn't like this book at first. About the first 1/3 of the book is spent comparing Sartre to Heidegger (since the author seems to be an expert on Heidegger), which I did not find helpful. The remaining 2/3 of the book I did find helpful in attempting to understand Sartre's philosophies and essays and works better.
A very good perspective to understand the contribution of Sartre. A short and precise text. It has to be understood as introduction because it is helpful to open new views and new fields of research. Inside its pages we forget about the critical wiews on Sartre made in Paris to overcome some philosophical division (as between existential philosophy and structuralism)
While not as opaque as Heidegger, Sartre presents his own challenges in understanding his evolution of thought and how this supplied the world with a definition (so called....) of existentialism. Bernasconi does a good job of presenting an overview, if only to help me realize that I need a LOT more immersion in Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, pulling in Dewey and Lacan along with some others, in order to get a better handle on where we are today, what brings us here, and maybe a clue to where we're being thrown (H/T to Heidegger.....).