Reddit reviews Heidegger: An Introduction

I'm not /u/hungrystegosaurus, but here are a few personal suggestions:

Philosophy on the whole -- Copleston is the standard and for good reason

Early Greek philosophy -- Nietzsche has a relatively accessible and worthwhile overview on many Greek sages that I found to be a supremely helpful, though controversial, introduction

Plato -- Very, very tough to recommend any good introduction to his work taken holistically, but I'll go out on a limb and recommend something Straussian, which is a little tough for a first-timer but grounds Platonic philosophy in living moral and political issues OP is likely more familiar with. Shorter dialogues like the Meno and the Apology might also be worth checking out

Aristotle -- Forget the abstruse metaphysics; stick with the ethics. The Cambridge intro is adequate

Renaissance / Enlightenment philosophy -- Not my primary interest, but rather than plunging into Kant, try something like the Novum Organum by Bacon, which is an admirably clear laying-out of the Enlightenment project, written without impenetrable jargon and in a digestible aphoristic style

Nietzsche -- Most anything by Kaufmann will do, but this is a nice piece

Heidegger -- Richard Polt's introduction

Existentialism in general -- Not a written reference, but this video lecture series by Solomon, an excellent UT philosophy professor, makes for a nice companion

Contemporary philosophy -- /u/ReallyNicole, one of this subreddit's moderators, would be able to offer a ton of great introductory material. She's sort of a pro at linking to articles

This is barely scratching the surface, but scratching the surface is more than enough. If OP can get through even half of this material in a year or two's time, he'll be well on his way to developing his philosophical faculties and familiarity.

To recommend motherfucking Being and Time or the Critique of Pure Reason (without supplemental aids, no less) to a 17-year-old novice is so egregiously, maddeningly, ball-shrivelingly stupid and such wholly, purely, offensively bad advice that I honestly wouldn't mind seeing /u/JamieHugo permanently banned from this subreddit for corrupting the youth.

Shaun Gallagher's Phenomenology is a great introduction, and covers a lot of the areas and distinctions made by philosophers.

Dan Zahavi's Husserl's Phenomenology is actually pretty decent. He considers other positions and how they relate to the O.G. of phenomenology. Plus, Zahavi is a freakishly clear writer.

Edit/PS: "Introductions to Heidegger" are often hard to recommend, but with your political philosophy bent, I'd suggest Irene McMullin's Time and the Shared World: Heidegger on Social Relations. I can't wholeheartedly recommend the book, as I have yet to read it, but reviews speak highly of it.

And, as far as I'm aware, Richard Polt's Heidegger: An Introduction is a core book in its comprehensive overview of Heidegger's works.

This helps: Heidegger: An Introduction

Heidegger is tough, even for people who aren't beginners with regard to philosophy in general. For myself, I had a strong background in Aristotle before reading selections of Heidegger's early lectures on Aristotle, which helped me see where Heidegger was coming from with regard to 'being qua being.'

However, though I haven't read it, there's a book, Heidegger: An Introduction that looks promising.

I have this to guide me:

http://www.amazon.com/Heidegger-An-Introduction-Richard-Polt/dp/0801485649/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344274506&sr=8-1&keywords=introduction+to+heidegger