Publisher's Synopsis
Critical theory fired the imagination of students and intellectuals in Europe and the US during the later 1960s and 1970s who were looking for a critical alternative to orthodox Marxism.
The readings selected for this volume include a wide range of contributions to critical theory representing three phases of development. Part I (Original Themes) presents pieces from Theodore Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse, each of whom was crucial to the formation of critical theory in the 1930s and '40s. Commentaries by specialists in this period are also included. Part II (Reassessment and Critique: Critical Theory in the Post-War World) presents the debates that accompanied the revival of interest in critical theory in the English-speaking world, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In Part III (Habermasian Critical Theory and Beyond) the articles refer to the contribution of Jurgen Habermas to critical theory as well as some of the uncertainties to which this has given rise.
