By no means a bad book, but ... Pinkard faces the challenge of writing the life of someone whose life was not, to say the least, stuffed to the gills with excitement and incident -- and he mostly succeeds.

The historical and cultural context surrounding Hegel gets filled in more colorfully than Hegel himself, I think, though it's nice to occasionally get glimpses of G. W. F. with his hair down -- we learn that he really liked playing cards, for example, and that he had an illegitimate child and ... well, Hegel lived.

I am halfway through the book and may update this when I am done. ( )