fear for the welfare of fictional characters as if it were his own. Diderot showed how the absence of self can be exploited by the powerful to reshape the minds of the weak. He proves that given the right environment and length of time, any one of us, like the victims in The Nun, could just as easily have his life ruined. Sartre reminds us that it is impossible to be-in-exterior. We see ourselves according to the way that others perceive us based on conditioning and prejudices. Sartre untangles the snarled web of misperception of self that arises from «the look» of the other. This book addresses man¿s growing understanding of the death of self in the mirror of other across the corridors of time ¿ from Narcissus¿ ancient pool, to Cicerös Roman forum, to Rousseaüs Parisian theater, to Diderot¿s convent in The Nun, to Sartre¿s twentieth-century hell.