Theodor W. Adorno (19031969) was one of the twentieth centurys most important thinkers. In light of two pivotal developmentsthe rise of fascism, which culminated in the Holocaust, and the standardization of popular culture as a commodity indispensable to contemporary capitalismAdorno sought to evaluate and synthesize the essential insights of Western philosophy by revisiting the ethical and sociological arguments of his predecessors: Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Marx. This book, first published in Germany in 1996, provides a succinct introduction to Adornos challenging and far-reaching thought. Gerhard Schweppenhauser, a leading authority on the Frankfurt School of critical theory, explains Adornos epistemology, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and theory of culture.

After providing a brief overview of Adornos life, Schweppenhauser turns to the theorists core philosophical concepts, including post-Kantian critique, determinate negation, and the primacy of the object, as well as his view of the Enlightenment as a code for world domination, his diagnosis of modern mass culture as a program of social control, and his understanding of modernist aesthetics as a challenge to conceive an alternative politics. Along the way, Schweppenhauser illuminates the works widely considered Adornos most important achievements: Minima Moralia, Dialectic of Enlightenment (co-authored with Horkheimer), and Negative Dialectics. Adorno wrote much of the first two of these during his years in California (193849), where he lived near Arnold Schoenberg and Thomas Mann, whom he assisted with the musical aesthetics at the center of Manns novel Doctor Faustus.