Skempton's book focuses on the question whether it is still possible, after Derrida, to hold on to a notion of alienation. According to Derrida, the logic of alienation and de-alienation is trapped in a ‘metaphysics of presence’, for the idea that alienation can be overcome necessarily refers to a metaphysical conception of a self-identical human essence inscribed into a theological model of fall and redemption. Although Skempton follows Derrida's critique of the traditional notion of alienation, he aims to demonstrate that his deconstructive readings of Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger disregard their attempts to overcome the determination of essentiality in terms of a self-identical substance. As Skempton points out, Hegel and Marx conceive of subjectivity not as a self-present, identical substance, but as a genuine openness to the other or as ‘infinite determinability’. In this context, alienation refers to forms of abstract identification and violent determination. Similarly, Skempton argues that Heidegger's concept of ‘ownness’ (Eigentlichkeit) refers to Dasein's fundamental interrelatedness with the world and other human beings and therefore does not involve a form of identity vulnerable to deconstruction. For Heidegger too, alienation or ‘inauthenticity’ designates a fixation on the ‘present-at-hand’ (Vorhandenheit) and an oblivion of the differential structure that characterizes Dasein's radical futurity. Skempton offers a coherent account of why Hegel, Marx and Heidegger can be considered to provide a concept of de-alienated subjectivity that goes beyond a ‘metaphysics of presence’. However, I regard his book—apart from some minor questionable decisions—as problematic for two reasons. First, the core argument of Alienation After Derrida seems to be that a ‘metaphysics of presence’ can be avoided simply by equating alienation with identification and de-alienation with difference, openness and ‘infinite determinability’. Yet whereas Derrida calls into question the very opposition of alienation and de-alienation, Skempton's approach remains dualistic. Second, and perhaps more astonishing, Skempton ignores the political, economic, and social questions which formed the very basis of the discourse on alienation. He is too preoccupied with rejecting Derrida's criticism of Hegel, Marx and Heidegger to realize that the problem of alienation is not just philosophical, but also socio-economic. Readers who are looking for a way to bring the concept of alienation to bear on a contemporary critical theory of society are therefore likely to be disappointed.