Abstract

Introduction to Critical Theory provides an excellent exposition of the Frankfurt School's critical theory. It also offers an overview of American and European debates of the last decade concerning critical theory. It is a sympathetic yet critical discussion of Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and Habermas. While other works have examined these individual figures in more depth, no other single work examines them all with equal clarity and depth. It will take its place alongside Jay's Dialectical Imagination as an introductory but not elementary work. In critical theory, if in nothing else, Great Britain enjoys the advantage of the late comer. Critical theory in North America and West Germany is too familiar for a book such as this one to have been written.