The Second Sex

THE SECOND SEX is a hymn to human freedom and a classic of the existentialist movement. It also has claims to be the most important s ingle book in the history of feminism. In the forty years since its publication De Beauvoir's then revolutionary thesis - that the subordination of women is not a fact of nature but the product of social conditioning has become part of our everyday thinking.

"The effect of the new translation, which should be applauded, is to make Beauvoir more herself. . . still lively, still apropos." --Slate
"This is the edition Beauvoir herself would have wanted, one so true to the original that we can hear her voice in the text. Borde and Malovany-Chevallier's new translation is long overdue, and it is a triumph." --Margaret Simons, Distinguished Research Professor Emerita, Southern Illinois University
"[Borde and Malovany-Chevallier's translation] can be read with confidence, enlightenment, and pleasure. . . . A significant step forward and a remarkable achievement. So if you're one of those people who always meant to read "The Second Sex"--why not now?" --Women's Review of Books
"From Eve's apple to Virginia Woolf's room of her own, Beauvoir's treatise remains an essential rallying point, urging self-sufficiency and offering the fruit of knowledge."
--"Vogue"
"[A] long-awaited achievement." -"Book Bench," newyorke

Praise from the UK for the new edition of "The Second Sex"
"[A] masterpiece. . . . Restores essential passages that have been missing for 60 years." --"The Times"
"Groundbreaking. . . . A fresh, much expanded, more intelligible book which repays re-reading by adherents of the old version, and cries out for attention from young women who have not been exposed to this most powerful of feminist thinkers. "The Second Sex" [is] the foundation text of second-wave feminism. It is probably the most important and influential philosophical treatise of the 20th century." --"The Irish Times"
""The Second Sex" is an inquiry into a subject with profound implications for the entire human race, and its ideas are as fresh and inspiring as they were when [Beauvoir] began work. . . . Now Beauvoir's great work is available in a full English translation for the f

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. In 1929 she became the youngest person ever to obtain the agregation in philosophy at the Sorbonne, placing second to Jean-Paul Sartre. She taught at the lycees at Marseille and Rouen from 1931-1937, and in Paris from 1938-1943. After the war, she emerged as one of the leaders of the existentialist movement, working with Sartre on Les Temps Mordernes. The author of several books including The Mandarins (1957) which was awarded the Prix Goncourt, de Beauvoir was one of the most influential thinkers of her generation. She died in 1986.Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier have lived in Paris for over forty years and are both graduates of Rutgers University, New Jersey. Borde was on the faculty of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques and has been chair and vice-chair of American Democrats Abroad. Malovany-Chevallier was a full- time faculty member at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques and continues to teach American literature. They have been translating books and articles on social science, art and feminist literature for twenty-five years and have jointly authored numerous books in French on subjects ranging from grammar to politics to American cooking.

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