Customer Reviews

The Essential Frankfurt School Reader

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There are, surprisingly, few solid collections of the Frankfurt School out there. This is unfortunate, since often the essays produced by these thinkers are more useful to the general reader--even a general academic reader--than the longer works. And, unfortunately, none of them are very satisfying. All of these collections lack essential essays, and all of them include numerous throw-aways that are unimportant or unuseful. And none of them have particularly helpful introductions for the uninitiated.

Nevertheless, this one is probably a better bet than the other two major collections, "Critical Theory: the Essential Readings" and "German 20th Century Philosophy: the Frankfurt School." If only because it includes Adorno's "Fetish Character of Music," which the others don't. Its principal flaw is the same as the others: the mysterious absence of Walter Benjamin's "Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." But overall, its selections are representative and give the reader a good general overview, moreso than the competition at least.

This book was my first exploration into the Frankfurt School; although it immediately struck a chord within me, I was unprepared for the scholarly vocabularly (classic sociology, etc.) expected of the reader. Advice to the bold, impetuous novice: if you read this book, begin with the essays themselves, not the editors' introductions.