Battle For The American Mind Book

Somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. It seems like an expansive coverage of French philosophy; what inspired certain ideas, how do French thinkers link into each other, etc. I particularly liked it as an historical guide.

It seemed to try to do both, be an historical guide and a philosophical summary: it went deep into detail about a few particular arguments, especially about the subject going from Kant into the early French philosophers. I get how important that part is to the rest of the French philosophy but it was jarring and difficult to follow, but then the mode changed. The book did this often, suddenly going into detail about a philosophical argument from the historical portion. My gripe is what is left out or what isn't elaborated on. Huge focus is paid to the Kantian process but little to explain e.g. being-in-the-world.
Also RIP Beauvoir, the book explains that she was intelligent and impactful but only goes on to talk about the second sex, and very briefly at that.