In a compelling chronicle of her search to understand Beauvoir's philosophy in The Second Sex, Margaret A. Simons offers a unique perspective on Beauvoir's wide-ranging contribution to twentieth-century thought. She details the discovery of the origins of Beauvoir's existential philosophy in her hand-written diary from 1927, uncovers evidence of the sexist exclusion of Beauvoir from the philosophical canon, reveals evidence that the African-American writer Richard Wright provided Beauvoir with the theoretical model of oppression that she used in The Second Sex, shows the influence of The Second Sex in transforming Sartre's philosophy and in laying the theoretical foundations of radical feminism, and addresses feminist issues of racism, motherhood, and lesbian identity.