Abstract

All the central ideas of Critical Theory were originally formulated between the early 1930s and the mid-1950s. Though it is true that some of the major works of Critical Theory appeared subsequent to the 1950s — for example, Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man (1964) or Adorno's Negative Dialectics (1966) — it is also true that these works were essentially elaborations on concepts developed two or three decades earlier. Ironically, it was just at the point when Critical Theory had lost its initial impetus that it was “discovered” by some elements within the New Left in Europe and North America and thereby given a new lease on life, but now, under circumstances very different from those pertaining in the 1930s or 1940s. One of the conditions of Critical Theory's survival, therefore, was that it be at least partially re-thought and re-worked.