What is it to be human? What place do we have in the world? How should we live? What can we be? This book provides a comparative analysis of the responses that Hegel and Sartre give to these questions and, in so doing, offers one of the first sustained, comparative studies of their thought available in the English speaking world. The discussion is wide-ranging in that it engages with each thinker's conception of freedom, ethics, consciousness, social relations, group formations, and the self, before comparing the two to show that it is Hegel who provides the more logically consistent, subtle, and holistic analysis. But while the argument developed maintains that Hegel's analysis is superior to Sartre's, the book concludes by showing that a number of questions remain regarding the social formation that Hegel thinks is necessary to allow the individual to overcome his alienation from the social world. As such, the battle for human self-understanding and fulfilment is far from over. Book jacket.