Herbert Marcuse

This collection assembles some of Herbert Marcuse's most important work, and presents for the first time his responses to and development of classic Marxist approaches to revolution and utopia. This sixth and final volume of Marcuse's collected papers shows Marcuse's rejection of the prevailing twentieth-century Marxist theory and socialist practice - which he saw as inadequate for a thorough critique of Western and Soviet bureaucracy - and the development of his revolutionary thought towards a critique of the consumer society. Marcuse's later philosophical perspectives on technology, ecology, and human emancipation sat at odds with many of the classic tenets of Marx's materialist dialectic which placed the working class as the central agent of change in capitalist societies. A comprehensive introduction by Douglas Kellner and Clayton Pierce places Marcuse's philosophy in the context of his engagement with the main currents of twentieth century philosophy, and the volume concludes with an afterword by Peter Marcuse.

During the Second World War, three prominent members of the Frankfurt School--Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer--worked as intelligence analysts for the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime forerunner of the CIA. This book brings together their most important intelligence reports on Nazi Germany, most of them published here for the first time. These reports provide a fresh perspective on Hitler's regime and the Second World War, and a fascinating window on Frankfurt School critical theory. They develop a detailed analysis of Nazism as a social and economic system and the role of anti-Semitism in Nazism, as well as a coherent plan for the reconstruction of postwar Germany as a democratic political system with a socialist economy. These reports played a significant role in the development of postwar Allied policy, including denazification and the preparation of the Nuremberg Trials. They also reveal how wartime intelligence analysis shaped the intellectual agendas of these three important German-Jewish scholars who fled Nazi persecution prior to the war. Secret Reports on Nazi Germany features a foreword by Raymond Geuss as well as a comprehensive general introduction by Raffaele Laudani that puts these writings in historical and intellectual context.

Edited by Douglas Kellner and Clayton Pierce, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Emancipation is the fifth volume of Herbert Marcuse's collected papers. Containing some of Marcuse’s most important work, this book presents for the first time his unique syntheses of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and critical social theory, directed toward human emancipation and social transformation.Within philosophy, Marcuse engaged with disparate and often conflicting philosophical perspectives - ranging from Heidegger and phenomenology, to Hegel, Marx, and Freud - to create unique philosophical insights, often overlooked in favor of his theoretical and political interventions with the New Left, the subject of previous volumes. This collection assembles significant, and in some cases unknown texts from the Herbert Marcuse archives in Frankfurt, including: critiques of positivism and idealism, Dewey’s pragmatism, and the tradition of German philosophy philosophical essays from the 1930s and 1940s that attempt to reconstruct philosophy on a materialist base Marcuse’s unique attempts to bring together Freud and philosophy philosophical reflections on death, human aggression, war, and peace Marcuse’s later critical philosophical perspectives on science, technology, society, religion, and ecology.A comprehensive introduction by Douglas Kellner, Tyson Lewis and Clayton Pierce places Marcuse’s work in the context of his engagement with the main currents of twentieth century politics and philosophy. An Afterword by Andrew Feenberg provides a personal memory of Marcuse as scholar, teacher and activist, and summarizes the lasting relevance of his radical thought.

This is the first paperback edition of what is now recognized as Marcuse's most important collection of writings on philosophy. He analyzes and attacks some of the main intellectual currents of European thoughts from the Reformation to the Cold War. In a survey that includes Luther, Calvin, Kant, Burke, Hegel and Bergson, he shows how certain concepts of authority and liberty are constant elements in their very different systems. The book also contains Marcuse's famous response to Karl Popper's Poverty of Historicism, and his critique of Sartre.

The Essential Marcuse provides an overview of Herbert Marcuse's political and philosophical writing over four decades, with excerpts from his major books as well as essays from various academic journals. The most influential radical philosopher of the 1960s, Marcuse's writings are noteworthy for their uncompromising opposition to both capitalism and communism. His words are as relevant to today's society as they were at the time they were written.

The role of art in Marcuse’s work has often been neglected, misinterpreted or underplayed. His critics accused him of a religion of art and aesthetics that leads to an escape from politics and society. Yet, as this volume demonstrates, Marcuse analyzes culture and art in the context of how it produces forces of domination and resistance in society, and his writings on culture and art generate the possibility of liberation and radical social transformation.The material in this volume is a rich collection of many of Marcuse’s published and unpublished writings, interviews and talks, including ‘Lyric Poetry after Auschwitz’, reflections on Proust, and Letters on Surrealism; a poem by Samuel Beckett for Marcuse’s eightieth birthday with exchange of letters; and many articles that explore the role of art in society and how it provides possibilities for liberation.This volume will be of interest to those new to Marcuse, generally acknowledged as a major figure in the intellectual and social milieus of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as to the specialist, giving access to a wealth of material from the Marcuse Archive in Frankfurt and his private collection in San Diego, some of it published here in English for the first time.A comprehensive introduction by Douglas Kellner reflects on the genesis, development, and tensions within Marcuse’s aesthetic, while an afterword by Gerhard Schweppenhäuser summarizes their relevance for the contemporary era.

The Frankfurt School philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) studied with Martin Heidegger at Freiburg University from 1928 to 1932 and completed a dissertation on Hegel's theory of historicity under Heidegger's supervision. During these years, Marcuse wrote a number of provocative philosophical essays experimenting with the possibilities of Heideggerian Marxism. For a time he believed that Heidegger's ideas could revitalize Marxism, providing a dimension of experiential concreteness that was sorely lacking in the German Idealist tradition. Ultimately, two events deterred Marcuse from completing this program: the 1932 publication of Marx's early economic and philosophical manuscripts, and Heidegger's conversion to Nazism a year later. Heideggerian Marxism offers rich and fascinating testimony concerning the first attempt to fuse Marxism and existentialism. These essays offer invaluable insight concerning Marcuse's early philosophical evolution. They document one of the century's most important Marxist philosophers attempting to respond to the "crisis of Marxism": the failure of the European revolution coupled with the growing repression in the USSR. In response, Marcuse contrived an imaginative and original theoretical synthesis: "existential Marxism."

The New Left and the 1960s is the third volume of Herbert Marcuse's collected papers. In 1964, Marcuse published a major study of advanced industrial society, One Dimensional Man, which was an important influence on the young radicals who formed the New Left. Marcuse embodied many of the defining political impulses of the New Left in his thought and politics - hence a younger generation of political activists looked up to him for theoretical and political guidance. The material collected in this volume provides a rich and deep grasp of the era and the role of Marcuse in the theoretical and political dramas of the day.This volume contains articles, letters, talks, and interviews including: "On the New Left," a transcription of the 1968 talk at the Guardian newspaper's twentieth anniversary; "Reflections on the French Revolution," which contains comments on the 1968 French student and worker uprising; "Liberation from the Affluent Society," which presents Marcuse's contribution to the 1967 Dialectics of Liberations conference; and "United States: Questions of Organization and the Revolutionary Subject," a conversation between Marcuse and the German writer Hans Magnus Enzenberger, published here in English for the first time.Edited by Douglas Kellner, this volume will be of interest to all those previously unfamiliar with Herbert Marcuse, generally acknowledged as a major figure in the intellectual and social mileux of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as to specialists, who will here have access to papers and articles collected in one volume for the first time.

One of the most important texts of modern times, Herbert Marcuse's analysis and image of a one-dimensional man in a one-dimensional society has shaped many young radicals' way of seeing and experiencing life. Published in 1964, it fast became an ideological bible for the emergent New Left. As Douglas Kellner notes in his introduction, Marcuse's greatest work was a 'damning indictment of contemporary Western societies, capitalist and communist.' Yet it also expressed the hopes of a radical philosopher that human freedom and happiness could be greatly expanded beyond the regimented thought and behaviour prevalent in established society. For those who held the reigns of power Marcuse's call to arms threatened civilization to its very core. For many others however, it represented a freedom hitherto unimaginable.

One of the most important texts of modern times, Herbert Marcuse's analysis and image of a one-dimensional man in a one-dimensional society has shaped many young radicals' way of seeing and experiencing life. Published in 1964, it fast became an ideological bible for the emergent New Left. As Douglas Kellner notes in his introduction, Marcuse's greatest work was a 'damning indictment of contemporary Western societies, capitalist and communist.' Yet it also expressed the hopes of a radical philosopher that human freedom and happiness could be greatly expanded beyond the regimented thought and behaviour prevalent in established society. For those who held the reigns of power Marcuse's call to arms threatened civilization to its very core. For many others however, it represented a freedom hitherto unimaginable.

This second volume of Marcuse's collected papers includes unpublished manuscripts from the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as Beyond One-Dimensional Man, Cultural Revolution and The Historical Fate of Bourgeois Democracy, as well as a rich collection of letters. It shows Marcuse at his most radical, focusing on his critical theory of contemporary society, his analyses of technology, capitalism, the fate of the individual, and prospects for social change in contemporary society.

It is of the very definition of any "classic" work that it will not only introduce a new depth and direction of thought, but that its original insights endure. When it first appeared in 1940, Reason and Revolution by Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) was acclaimed for its profound and undistorted reading of Hegel's social and political theory. Today, the appreciation of Marcuse's work has remained high, more relevant now than ever before. In the rapidly changing context of post-Cold War political realities, there is no better guide than Marcuse to where we have been and to what we might expect. As he well understood, turbulent and spectacular political events always ran within channels earlier set by political theory; and he equally understood that it was Hegel's often unappreciated and misunderstood theory which actually set a fundamental path of modern political life. It is a fortunate combination to have a scholar of Marcuse's brilliance and lucid honesty addressing the sources and consequences of Hegel's social theory.

Herbert Marcuse is one of the most influential thinkers of our time. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied philosophy with Husserl and Heidegger at the Universities of Freiburg and Berlin. Marcuse's critical social theory ingeniously fuses phenomenology, Freudian thought and Marxist theory; and provides a solid ground for his reputation as the most crucial figure inspiring the social activism and New Left politics of the 1960s and 1970s. The largely unpublished work collected in this volume makes clear the continuing relevance of Marcuse's thought to contemporary issues. The texts published here, dealing with concerns during the period 1942-1951, exhibit penetrating critiques of technology and analyses of the ways that modern technology produces novel forms of society and culture with new modes of social control. The material collected in Technology, War and Facism provides exemplary attempts to link theory with practice, to develop ideas that can be used to grasp and transform existing social reality.Technology, War and Fascism is the first of six volumes of Herbert Marcuse's Collected Papers to be edited by Douglas Kellner. Each volume is a collection of previously un-published or uncollected essays, unfinished manuscripts and letters by one of the greatest thinkers of our time.

Dialectal stories and poems by New York City black and Spanish-speaking children edited from tape recordings taken in the classroom.

This classic book is Marcuse's masterful interpretation of Hegel's philosophy and the influence it has had on European political thought from the French Revolution to the present day. Marcuse brilliantly illuminates the implications of Hegel's ideas with later developments in European thought, particularily with Marxist theory.

-- Douglas Kellner, University of Texas, Austin