Reviews for The essential Frankfurt School reader

The average rating for The essential Frankfurt School reader based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-01-20 00:00:00 Glen Adair The Essential Frankfurt School Reader provides an excellent introduction to the development of the Frankfurt School's intellectual program. The book accomplishes three important steps in providing this introduction. First, the editors offer the reader a series of introductory chapters that cover the subjects of the essays presented in the text. These chapters give an overview of the historical and intellectual development of the Frankfurt School from its origins as a Marxist think-tank responding to the rise of fascism and the October Revolution to its late philosophical iterations in which Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse seek to find an intellectual response to the aftermath of the holocaust and totalitarianism. The choice of materials that the editors make constitutes the second major accomplishment of the text. While relying heavily on the major figures of the early Frankfurt School, nonetheless we also get essays from Otto Kirchheimer, Fredrich Pollack, Walter Benjamin, Leo Lowenthal and Erich Fromm. These essays help fill in the "gaps" of the economic, sociological, cultural and psychological interdisciplinary approach that provided the intellectual foundation that Adorno, Marcuse and Horkheimer made their life projects. Finally, the editorial selection from the major figures provide us with some of the more accessible works of Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse, essays that are also representative of the greater intellectual projects of these influential figures. In particular, the final essay of the book, Adorno's Subject-Object, ties the thematic structure of the whole set of essays together as it demonstrates the intellectual approach the philosophers of the Frankfurt school deployed in their philosophical project. Here, all the elements of the Frankfurt School philosophy are present: dialectical mediation, sociology of the subject, and the critique of rationalism. The text is incredibly well structured and accessible for a reader interested in these difficult subjects and authors.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-05-22 00:00:00 Joe Smith Anyone that is interested in Critical Theory or this diverse group of misplaced Jewish-German immigrants should get this text. While some essays are better than others, I'd recommend any of the selections by Adorno and/or Horkheimer, they all have merit.