In this companion volume to his general introduction to Hegel, Tom Rockmore offers a passage-by-passage guide to Hegel's "Phenomenology of the Spirit" for first time readers of the book. Rockmore demonstrates that Hegel's concepts of spirit, consciousness, and reason can be treated as elements of a single, coherent theory of knowledge, one that remains strikingly relevant for the contemporary discussion. He shows how the various conceptions of cognition developed in the text culminate in absolute knowing, which Rockmore reads, in opposition to the frequent religious readings of Hegel, in a wholly secular manner. Unlike commentators who isolate Hegel's text from its philosophical origins, Rockmore analyzes the book in the philosophical context from which it emerged, discussing difficult passages in relation to the ideas of Aristotle and Descartes, and above all those of Kant and other German idealists.