This is another book that claims some sort of expertise on the subject of Derrida, in particular his relation to Husserl and phenomenology. But then why is so much of the narrative of the 218 pages of text largely a discussion of other commentators?

But hold on: there is another 100 pages of footnotes, and this is where it gets weird. The footnotes are one prolonged assessment of other commentators on Derrida: each and every footnote offers a various and sundry assessment of the deficiencies other experts in this field. They all have the same obsessive pattern: XXX miscontrues what Derrida is up to here, though XXX had made some real contributions, ultimately XXX is completely clueless, for reasons Mr Kates has enumerated, or will enumerate. And the same pattern persists throughout the book; Mr Kates spends far more time denigrating other writers on Derrida than actually writing on Derrida. And by the end of the book there is only one person left as a credible expert on Derrida: The author Himself.

Ok. I am being mean: he does defer, after all to Genesis and Trace, a fine book by Paola Marrati.

But now that I think about it, Mr Kates' Essential History is less a sustained effort to explain and analyse Derrida, but is rather a heavy handed and sustained attack on a competing book, Lawlor's Husserl and Derrida. I agree that Lawlor's book is weak in all respects, but does he deserve a sustained attack conducted repeatedly and relentlessly throughout the footnotes?

This is a pretentious book that claims an expertise in the subject, but spends the majority of the readers time putting up with his claims to being an expert on the subject. He probably is, but then, why all the schadenfreude????

If you don't agree with this review, then go and read through the footnotes.