Doyle (English, U. of Massachusetts) presents ten essays that use the theories of French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (on the relation of the body to the world) as a springboard to examine a raft of social and political issues. Among the topics covered are the way that victims of torture attempt to reclaim the debased body away from the torture, the foundational concepts of absent versus present bodies in the social contract theory of Rousseau and Rawls, the ontological concepts of J.W. Goethe as a predecessor to the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, and cultural analysis of the body as related to race and colonialism. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)