A Review ofThe Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and The Institute of Social Research

✍ Scribed by Russell Jacoby

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1974
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 577 KB
• Volume: 1
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0304-2421
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00160160

✦ Synopsis

viewed briefly: it is a serious, accurate, and academic presentation of the thought of the Frankfurt School from its origins till 1950. Since its synthesis is coherent and cogent, and the texts on which it is based are either not available in English, or are now only becoming so, it will hopefully contribute to the resurgence of a critical Marxism -though this is hardly its intent. A report along these lines would suffice, not because this is a bad book, but a good one, even though it argues very little, presents nothing very original, raises no important questions. Even Jay's remarks at the beginning that the "historical moment" of the Frankfurt School has "irrevocably passed" (p.vii) could be chalked up as the I.O.U. the academy exacts from a practicing historian as a guarantee the subject at hand is dead and gone.