Sonia Kruks's thought has always been clear, insightful, and original. It is therefore not at all surprising that Simone de Beauvoir and the Politics of Ambiguity provides readers with an erudite yet accessible reading of the political theory of one of the great intellects of the twentieth century. The merits of the book lie not only in the historical treatment of Beauvoir's political philosophy—a theory as important, as Kruks shows us, as the political thought of Hannah Arendt or Axel Honneth—but in its continuing relevance to contemporary debates about privilege and justice.

The book is divided into six sections—an introduction, which provides a clear overview of the project, and five chapters that deal with Beauvoir's political relationship to humanism, oppression, privilege, judgment, and revenge. Each approaches the particular theme through current scholarship as well as Beauvoir's own philosophy, literature, autobiography, and politics. Rather than try to offer any kind of solution to seemingly irresolvable political antinomies, Kruks shows how Beauvoir's philosophy of ambiguity provides us with a framework that works within, rather than above, paradoxes of action. For, as Beauvoir argues, the human condition is itself ambiguous; action always unfolds in an indeterminate and changing landscape; the moment is always caught between the past which is no longer and the future which is not yet. And, perhaps most importantly, failure haunts all action—political or ethical—because we are not gods and there exists no absolute truth that precedes and guides our choices. Politics, like the rest of life, takes place on a plane of uncertainty because human finitude cannot attain external justification. Validation does not elude us because we are finite; rather, as Beauvoir shows, our finitude discloses to us that absolute meaning is a dangerous illusion in the first place—and this is nowhere clearer than in the political arena.

Kruks's introduction provides an overview of Beauvoir's life and the development of her political theory out of her “moral period” through the various concrete experiences (the occupation of Paris, the founding of Les Temps Modernes, her tour of America, etc.) that informed her mature existential perspective. The remainder of the book approaches deeply political forces—such as material conditions, racist institutions, biological realities of sex and aging, and the complexities of emotional life—through Beauvoir's own engagement with them, as well as Kruks's creative application of Beauvoirian ideas to our contemporary condition.

Chapter 1, “Humanism after Posthumanism,” is, to my mind, the strongest in the book. Kruks's voice is compelling when she takes on the pitfalls of both abstract liberal humanism, with its monolithic and exclusionary definition of the “rational human,” and posthumanism, which takes its criticism of universality so far that we lose sight of why we should care about humanity at all. Kruks argues for a “productive reconstruction” of humanism using Beauvoir as a resource to do so. Kruks thereby aligns herself nicely with contemporary feminist treatments of vulnerability and precariousness (as can be found in Judith Butler, Kelly Oliver, Debra Bergoffen, Ann Murphy, and others) while adding her own unique voice to frame the issue. Kruks calls for “a humanism that is critical of itself in the name of humanism—a critical, ‘constantly doubled,’ or what, drawing on Beauvoir, I call an ambiguous humanism” that takes seriously the posthumanist critique of Enlightenment ideology and yet preserves “the human” as something worth our care and protection (32). Kruks concludes that our ambiguous, embodied existence prevents us from ever overcoming alterity or objectification; however, our realization of this allows us to jettison the harmful desire for purity, which is not only unrealizable in politics, but deeply dangerous as a pursuit.

The second chapter, “Theorizing Oppression,” provides an excellent contribution to our understanding of oppression in Beauvoir's philosophy. Kruks analyzes three different kinds of oppressive structures: (1) asymmetrical recognition (as can be found in her analysis of women in The Second Sex); (2) indifference (as revealed in Beauvoir's analysis of race in America Day by Day); and finally, (3) aversion (as experienced by the aged in advanced, Western, capitalist societies). Kruks writes convincingly in this chapter as she moves beyond the Hegelian master-slave dialectic to show how Beauvoir's philosophy of ambiguity allows for multiple frameworks through which to approach the problems of oppression—frameworks that are not irreducible to each other, even if they may function on individuals and groups simultaneously.

In the third chapter, “Confronting Privilege,” Kruks tackles the important feminist question of privilege. How, Kruks asks, can we fight against injustice and oppression if our voice comes from a position of privilege that may be, at least partially, granted through unjust and oppressive practices and institutions? This chapter unearths the morass of Beauvoir's own privilege (of which she was only partially aware) as well as the privilege of any intellectual or politician who wants to enact concrete change but who can do so only by exploiting their own advantaged position. Kruks concludes that rather than renouncing privilege (particularly of class and education) Beauvoir “learned to deploy it as a basis for effective, public, political intervention” (111). Kruks's notion of deployment is provocative and at times she could make her case even more strongly. There are moments in the discussion where Kruks holds back, trying perhaps too hard not to defend Beauvoir's privileged status or her conscious utilization of it in her political maneuverings. Kruks's voice is always best when strong and direct on the question of ambiguity and failure. And Beauvoir's own failures in political thought and action are as instructive to us as her successes.

The discussion of the Algerian war, which Kruks addresses in Beauvoir's 1955 essay Privilèges and her work with the Djamila Boupacha case, leads into the next chapter, “Dilemmas of Political Judgment,” which explores how literature tackles political quandaries. Kruks focuses primarily on Beauvoir's novel The Mandarins and its depiction of post–World War II Paris where the enemy was no longer as clear as it had been during the war. The final chapter, “‘An Eye for an Eye’: The Question of Revenge,” raises fascinating questions about how we deal with revenge, especially in the face of large-scale political atrocities. Beauvoir's struggles with the trial and execution of the Nazi sympathizer Robert Brasillach reveals to her that revenge always fails. To vengefully retaliate for harm done neither returns us to the situation prior to the wrong, nor undoes prior suffering, nor establishes reciprocity between perpetrator and victim (160).

Following a brief treatment of the possibilities of restorative justice opened up by Beauvoir's thought, the book simply ends, which is a great disappointment. Having done such a masterful job of exploring so many nuances of Beauvoir's thought, the work would benefit from a conclusion regarding action as ambiguous, embodied subjects in a world of constant change and uncertainty. What does it mean that Beauvoir insists both on political failure and the pervasive call to nurture freedom (both in ourselves and others)?

Regardless of the abrupt ending, the book is an excellent contribution to Beauvoir scholarship and political theory in general. It is well worth careful study and raises questions that will haunt the reader long after it is concluded.