Although less of a public figure than many of his contemporaries, philosopher Gilles Deleuze was an important leader of twentieth-century thought. His life and philosophy were bound up in numerous friendships, collaborations, and disputes with several of the period's most influential thinkers—not to mention writers, artists, and filmmakers. In this book, Frida Beckman traces Deleuze's remarkable intellectual journey, mapping the many rich encounters from which his life and work emerged.

Beckman follows Deleuze from the salons of his early student years through his popularity as a young teacher to the extraordinarily productive phases of his philosophical work. She examines his life at the experimental University of Paris VIII and his friendships with people like Michel Foucault and Félix Guattari, and she considers how Deleuze's philosophical developments resonate with historical, political, and philosophical events from World War II to the student uprisings in the 1960s to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Beckman ultimately highlights the ways that Deleuze's legacy has influenced many branches of contemporary philosophy, offering a rich portrait of a contemporary philosopher who wrestled with some of philosophy's most fundamental questions in fresh and necessary ways.