First published in 1989, Essentially Speaking remains a clear intervention in one of feminism's longest-running arguments: is there such a thing as an essential female identity, or is gender produced through history, language and culture?

Diana Fuss patiently untangles the assumptions beneath both positions, reading philosophers, psychoanalysts and feminist theorists to show why the opposition between essentialism and anti-essentialism is rarely as straightforward as it appears.

More than three decades on, the questions the book still make this an enduring text for readers interested in feminist theory, queer studies, poststructuralism or the intellectual history of identity politics. Less a defence of essentialism than an attempt to understand why the debate persists, it is one of those books that quietly reshapes the way later theory is read.

Routledge paperback, first printing (1989). Light edge wear and gentle creasing to the covers, with a previous owner's name discreetly written on the half-title page. Internally clean and in very good condition.