The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950 (Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism)

by Martin Jay (Author)

11 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0520204232

ISBN-10: 9780520204232

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Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer, Franz Neumann, Theodor Adorno, Leo Lowenthal―the impact of the Frankfurt School on the sociological, political, and cultural thought of the twentieth century has been profound. The Dialectical Imagination is a major history of this monumental cultural and intellectual enterprise during its early years in Germany and in the United States. Martin Jay has provided a substantial new preface for this edition, in which he reflects on the continuing relevance of the work of the Frankfurt School.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Berkeley Professor Jay's intellectual history covers the influential Frankfurt School, a group of German philosophers whose radical cultural criticism laid much of the groundwork for contemporary critical theory.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Though finding some flaws in the text, LJ's reviewer nonetheless dubbed this history of the Frankfort School and the Institute for Social Research a "coherent, judicious discussion of this controversial band of German Theorists." Libraries lacking such a volume should purchase this "lucid study"
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product details

Series: Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism (Book 10)
Paperback: 382 pages
Publisher: University of California Press (March 5, 1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780520204232
ISBN-13: 978-0520204232
ASIN: 0520204239
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 11 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #716,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1055 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Research
- #1110 in Books > Textbooks > Social Sciences > Political Science > Political History
- #2194 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > European

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Winston D.

Informative, but Jay too uncritically accepts certain judgments of ...

May 30, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Informative, but Jay too uncritically accepts certain judgments of Adorno in particular. Accusations of undialectical thinking and vulgar materialism are thrown around without justification.

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K. Grubaugh

THE DIALECTICAL IMAGINATION

February 8, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

GREAT REFERENCE WORK. MANY MORE SUCH REFERENCE BOOKS SHOULD BE MADE AVAILABLE FOR HIGH SCHOOL, COLLEGE, AND UNIVERSITY POST GRADUATE STUDENTS.

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Kindle Customer Allen Lawrence

Little on early thinkers like Luckas or later eg

August 14, 2015

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Long on information. Short on insight. Little on early thinkers like Luckas or later eg. Marcuse.

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March 23, 2017

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nice pack, thanks

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Volkswagen Blues

Indispensable Introduction to the Frankfurt School

January 6, 2002

Format: Paperback

28 years after its initial publication, Martin Jay's "The Dialectical Imagination" is still the best introduction and most indispensable guide to the Frankfurt School's history and thinkers. Jay can easily be forgiven his occasional historiographer's dryness and insistent reminders of the boundaries of his project (I would be a rich man if I had a nickel for every time he writes that "such considerations fall outside of the area of the current inquiry" or something to that effect). Moreover, even if subsequent publications of the translated correspondence and unpublished papers of figures like Benjamin and Adorno have robbed Jay's book of some of its potential for novelty and scoop, Jay still provides the best and most pithy assessments of the major points, and he does so without sacrificing the scholarly rigor that organizes "The Dialectical Imagination."
The book could certainly better fulfill its role as research tool if the publishers would sponsor an updating of the notes and citations; now that everything has been published and republished by presses like Fischer and Suhrkamp in Germany and by the likes of Continuum, Columbia, Harvard, etc., in the English-speaking world, Jay's opus might be more helpful were it not to insist on citing the original issues of the institute's journals, to which most of us simply don't have easy access.
That's a small bone to pick, though, with such a thorough book. Jay's chapter on the philosophical roots of critical theory moves quickly but surely (despite the occasional dependence on disciplinary argot that may slow down readers not steeped in the vocabulary of "isms"), providing a crucial backdrop to his reading of the Frankfurt School's entire intellectual contribution. This chapter grounds Jay's book safely, and the subsequent chapters make good on this very promising start.
"The Dialectical Imagination" is sure to remain the best available introduction to the thought of the Frankfurt School on the whole. I cannot recommend it highly enough for those interested in the history of philosophy in the 20th century, in radical politics, or in developments in literary theory.

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Suckwoo Lee

Locating thought in the right context

June 26, 2002

Format: Paperback

Frankfurt school is now a part of history. Not much of its arguments are reproduced now a day. For example, their critical cultural theory opened up the vast terrain of cultural study in capitalism. But their characterizing cultural consumer as dumb passive receiver is too much extreme to be real. Now nobody hold up such a position. Its perspective seems locked in the interwar period. Indeed, the power of the school comes from the distinctive problematic derived from such a peculiar era. But the strength is the source of weakness. But even we don¡¯t follow their lines, we should know what they said at least in cursory manner, for their theories are now classic in each field.
This book must be still the most authoritative history of Frankfurt school from its inception to 1950. but it deals with not only chronological events but also what the first generation of the school, such as Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, and Fromm, worked. This book is the intellectual history of the school. The author illustrates the school against the time of school. As Hegel said, thought is the child of its time. So the thought should be located in the right context to understand. The society of Western intellectuals faced a crisis in the interwar period. The impact was severe especially to German intellectuals. The thought of Frankfurt school is one of the reactions to the crisis. Marin Jay succeeds in reconstruct their time in front of us. This book is the ¡®must¡¯, if you want to be oriented to Frankfurt school.

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Joe Adams

The Invisible College par excellence!

July 31, 2007

Format: Paperback

This was one of the best books I read in graduate school. After 20 years this is still a great reference for anyone interested in the development of American universities. This work is an essential part of the intellectual landscape to anyone navigating the currents of the reactionary neocon thought, which developed in large degree in opposition to the legacy of the Frankfurt School. While the Frankfurt School's students seemed to dominate academe for a generation or more, the new invisible college is dominated by the reaction to this major stream of thought.

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Julian B. Brash

Evenhanded Intellectual History

January 26, 2001

Format: Paperback

A wonderful introduction to and overview of the works of one of the only coherent intellectual "schools" of the 20th century. Jay describes the penetrating insights (and weaknesses) of the thought of Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse et al., with mercifully little of the psychologizing that one often finds in intellectual history. Ideas and their relation to historical context are the focus, rather than personalities and psyches. The book is readable enough to be attractive for non-academics and academics alike. It would have been nice to have more on the post-1950 period, but the as the subtitle makes clear, this is beyond Jay's purview for this book.

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