To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse

by Carl R. Trueman

Critical theory has many faces; its complexities and nuances present a challenge to those seeking to engage with its thought. In order to understand critical theory today, we must first understand its origins, its development, and its consequences. To Change All Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse by Carl R. Trueman is an accessible introduction to the history and development of critical theory. From Hegel and Marx, to Korsch and Lukács, to the Frankfurt School, to Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse—Trueman focuses on the key figures of critical theory, positioning them within their historical context and tracing the development of critical theory through its various movements, evolutions, nuances, and consequences.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Cultural, Christian, Politics, Theology, Sociology

251 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 15, 2024

About the author

Carl R. Trueman (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is the Paul Woolley Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary and pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Ambler, Pennsylvania. He was editor of Themelios for nine years, has authored or edited more than a dozen books, and has contributed to multiple publications including the Dictionary of Historical Theology and The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology.

Reviews

[Jake Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anything Trueman decides is worth writing about, I will consider reading. He’s an incredible writer, especially when it comes to history. It helps that he’s hilarious.

With that being said, I decided it was time to learn a bit about this thing called critical theory. Trueman begins with the critical theorists original aim: they weren’t seeking to describe the world as it was, but they sought to change it.

How? To what end? For what reason? Who?

These are all things Trueman addresses in this book.

Lastly, I appreciated his candor in stating that Christians and Critical Theorists do in fact have some overlapping concerns. He follows that up with the phrase, “eat the meat and leave the bones”… and then proceeds to say why this cannot be the Christian’s answer to Critical Theory. A theory that negates, a theory that denies anything universal about the way things ought to be, a theory that does nothing but strip away and tear down… a theory like this has no place in the life of the Christian.

Rather than co-opt the theory, Trueman suggests that Christians listen ever so closely to the concerns that modern iterations of Critical Theory are raising. Instead of responding with a theory of their own, Christians are to respond with a way of life. This may sound trite or cliche, but Trueman says it so that just can’t be true (LOL)

[Caedyn Skinner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trueman is really good at laying out complicated past arguments to show us how we get to different theories. I unfortunately just don’t really agree with most of his ideas. So if you want to read a book that promotes no forward movement then this is the book for you

[BJ Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In To Change All Worlds, Carl Trueman takes a machete to the tangled intellectual jungle we now call “critical theory.” Beginning with Hegel (because where else would one begin if one wants to thoroughly confuse friends at dinner parties), Trueman traces the lineage from early Marx and Feuerbach to Freud, Reich, the ever-sullen Frankfurt School, and finally Foucault (the Frenchman who managed to make even “truth” sound suspicious). Trueman is characteristically erudite, bitingly insightful, and on rare occasions almost funny(ish). If you’ve ever wondered how phrases like “social construct,” “power dynamic,” or “hegemonic discourse” became part of your cousin’s Instagram bio, Trueman will show you... complete with footnotes.

Rather than turning the book into another hyperventilating culture war pamphlet, Trueman aims for clarity over caricature. He gives the theorists their due, explaining their origins and concerns with care, even as he shows where they go wrong, often spectacularly wrong. The central issue he identifies is anthropology: critical theory’s relentless suspicion of human nature, essentialism, and anything resembling fixed moral order. For thinkers like Marcuse and Reich, sex became salvation and repression the cardinal sin. But Trueman doesn’t settle for pearl-clutching; instead, he demonstrates how these theories, though once confined to lecture halls, are now the ambient air of modern discourse. We are all, in some sense, downstream of Frankfurt (whether we know it or not).

Where Trueman really earns his keep is not in merely critiquing critical theory, but in reminding Christians that the proper response is not a counter-theory, but a counter-life. The Church, he argues, doesn’t defeat cultural ideologies by producing longer bibliographies, but by embodying something far more subversive: communion, hospitality, humility, and worship. That may sound quaint to modern ears, trained to equate revolution with Twitter (er... "X") threads and televised outrage, but Trueman insists that the Church, rightly understood, is nothing less than a realized eschatology. We are a living contradiction to the claims of alienation, objectification, and despair that dominate both secular theory and, let’s be honest, plenty of Christian social media as well.

In the end, Trueman isn’t simply here to scold the modern West or wag his finger at Michel Foucault (though he still does that with academic precision). Rather, he offers a bracing and hopeful alternative: Christianity has better questions and better answers. He reminds us that, while critical theory may rightly identify the sickness of alienation, its prescribed cure of perpetual revolution and identity deconstruction is about as effective as curing a headache with a sledgehammer. Instead, Trueman calls the Church to be what it was always meant to be: the one place where people are not reduced to categories but seen as persons, made in the image of God. It’s a tall order. But then again, To Change All Worlds makes clear that we’re not meant to change the world through theory. We are simply meant to point others to the One who already has.

[Joshua Kane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic trueman. He is fantastic at taking the ideas on their own terms and laying them out. His walk through the early critical theorists is helpful and succinct. The last chapter is worth the price of the book itself. His pointing to the church, not as argument, but embodied community as the answer to the critical theorists is masterful. Take, read, grow.

[Keith Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trueman does a good job of providing the reader with a history of the critical theory movement. His discussion of the philosophies is aided by good, simple to comprehend examples. He also provides a brief analysis of Christian responses to critical theory, particularly in the final chapter. Critical theory is a difficult concept for me to understand, but Trueman's book was helpful to clear-up my understanding. Any Christian wanting understand more about critical theory would benefit from adding this to your library and reading on a periodic basis.

[Tim Hazelbaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm going to have to read again much more carefully.

[Sue Plant · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful historical analysis

This book provides the historical/philosophical background, which will help those who see critical theory as absurd understand why it is plausible for many.

[Andy Bond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Challenging but good read

It is a thorough historical account of the forerunners to contemporary critical theories. The author seeks to represent their ideas accurately with occasional Christian commentary.

It is not an easy read, this is unsurprising as It deals with a number of philosophers and he explains part of critical theory is the disjointed expression of their ideas !?

I would have liked a little more on the response for believers also maybe a little more on current diverse theories, however this a deep dive into its roots.

One reflection is the lack of interaction with Tom Hollands thesis in Dominion that effectively these theories emerged in the long run because of Christianity. He highlights continuity. Trueman on the other hand both here and in his "Rise & Triumph" focuses on the discontinuity. I'd like to see how they work together.

Well worth reading.

[Elijah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really complicated topics, but Trueman elucidates them really well. If only for this, it would have been four stars; his comments on, essentially, evangelising the critical culture were sublime, which is the reason for five stars.

[Stephen Drew]

“Pick up Carl Trueman's latest volume, To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse. It is the best resource available for a deep dive into the intellectual foundations of Critical Theory.” - Andrew Walker on X

[Chris Wray · Rating 5 out of 5]

"‘Critical theory’ has in recent years become a major bone of contention in American culture. The term has taken on a life of its own, such that it functions as a kind of shibboleth for both conservatives and progressives. Are you for it or against it? That is the blunt either-or test of loyal membership on both sides of the political divide, typically played out at levels of sophistication dictated by the character limits for a Tweet. In particular, critical race theory has become a focal point for Americans eager to litigate the country's racial divides and the long shadow of slavery and segregation. Rather like those other buzzwords or phrases cultural Marxism, white privilege, heteronormativity - the vocabulary has taken on a life of its own, and is often wielded with utter conviction in the battles that take place online among those on both sides who have mastered the moralizing rhetoric without ever having reflected upon the theoretical background from which it emerged.”

Critical theory is a buzzword in both conservative and liberal circles, both inside and outside the church, and is undoubtedly a phrase that is used much more often than it is understood. Carl Trueman cuts through all this cultural noise with his characteristic insight and clarity of thought. Helpfully, he sets his overview and analysis of critical theory in the context of his other recent writing on the intersection of culture and Christianity, and the pressing need for the church to develop and affirm a rich biblical anthropology: “Once we step back from pressing political concerns, it is clear that the critical theorists…are all wrestling with the question of what, if anything, it means to be human?... What is man? Is he defined by making and producing or by consuming? Are biological relationships important or not? What does the good life look like? How has technology changed our understanding of human nature? Has it liberated us or enslaved us? Is sexual desire part of our core identity? Does the universe have a moral shape? Is there such a thing as "human nature"? Are we free agents or merely functions of broader cultural forces? And, of course, the pointed question so succinctly expressed by Pilate: What is truth? Christians wrestle with these questions, intensely so in our chaotic contemporary world. And critical theorists do so as well. If nothing else, we share with them a set of serious questions about the human condition that demand serious answers. If the challenge facing Christians and all members of Western society today comes down to basic questions such as these, questions that all touch on the deeper issue of how we define human nature, then it behooves us to be aware of the manner in which the discussion is being pursued.”

Anthropology is what Trueman pinpoints as the central problem that Christians should have with critical theory, and specifically its “deep suspicion of essentialism, that is, the belief that things have stable "essences" or, we might say, that things have fixed qualities that determine who or what they are and are thus how they are to act. In other words, when it comes to human beings, the very idea of human nature as something stable across time and cultures and that carries with it significant moral implications for how we live, is basically rejected…It also explains one of the great problems that critical theory exhibits: an inability to articulate a clear vision of what the future of human society should look like. In short, it makes the theory far more critical than constructive…It is clear on what is wrong with society - pretty much everything but it lacks the ability to articulate in clear terms what should replace it. It ultimately offers no vision of what it means to be human, whether because (as with the Hegelian Marxists) human nature has yet to be realized or, with the more postmodern critical theorists, it is ultimately a meaningless question. Therein lies its tragedy.”

Trueman then spends some time tracing the thread that connects Hegel to Marx, and from the Frankfurt School back to Marx’s earlier thought, to lay the conceptual foundation for contemporary critical theory: “While the Marx of the 1840s had clearly been indebted to the philosophy of Hegel in his development of his thinking, his later work…tilted away from the kind of categories he used in the 1840s - particularly that of alienation and toward more clearly economic concerns. While scholars debate the extent to which a "later" Marx breaks with an "early Marx," there is no disagreement about whether the nineteenth-century international socialist movement that he helped to inspire and which he influenced was strongly economic in its approach.” At the anecdotal level, this helps explain why the contemporary left is much more concerned with what we might term ‘identity politics’ than with the class-based economic concerns of an earlier generation.

If this isn’t enough, then Trueman reinforces the importance of gaining an understanding of the (apparently obscure) Frankfurt School: “The basic concerns of later forms of critical theory - the socially constructed nature of reality, the manipulative nature of truth claims, the manner in which consciousness or (to use later terminology) discourses of power are formed, maintained, and operated, the purpose of theory as not so much to describe the status quo as to destabilize it, and the connection of intellectual work to political activism - can all be found in some form in the foundational work of the Frankfurt School from the 1940s through the 1960s. And as with later critical theory, the intellectual eclecticism - Hegel, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche is also present from the early days. Indeed, there is a reason why, for many purists, "critical theory" and "Frankfurt School" are often treated as virtual synonyms: without the latter, there would likely be none of the later critical theories as we today know them. Thus, a knowledge of the Frankfurt School - its background and context, its major concerns, and its key players - is essential for understanding the later iterations of the tradition it inspired.”

One particularly important consequence of these theoretical developments is the alternative understanding of truth that it promotes. Trueman comments helpfully on this when he points out that, “The normal criterion of truth - correspondence to reality - is irrelevant. The important thing is whether the idea destabilizes the status quo and tilts the world toward the realization of revolution…Such a strategy often infuriates conservatives but it lies at the heart of the critical theory project. If all truth claims are ideological, then it is their practical ideological value that determines their truth value. Responses that demand evidence for claims miss the point of such theoretical critique: the very demand for evidence indeed, the definition of what does and does not count for evidence-arises out of the ideological structures of the society or culture within which the demand is made and evidence defined. They can thus be dismissed by a critical theorist as simply being part of the dominant ideology, an attempt to present the interests of the powerful as if they were the disinterested truths of nature…There is a problem here - a problem we will encounter on numerous occasions with critical theory. It is the question of how one might know that a particular idea destabilizes society in a way that advances the revolutionary project.”

Another important concept is that of reification, in other words, the categories that can be applied to other people and which are seen as culturally valid. Trueman addresses this by asking an important question: “What, if anything, grounds the categories by which we think about the human condition? Clearly a concept of "human nature" only takes us so far, given that we are free, intentional creatures and our lives are thus marked by particularities of the various cultures in which we live. We are each unique individuals with unique histories. Yet we also need to grasp that, when we look into the eyes of another human being, regardless of what particular category of identity might distinguish us from them, we look into the eyes of another human person, not a thing or an object. Critical theory can alert us to the reality of this problem but ultimately it cannot take us beyond the problem because of its radical suspicion of the power of our cultural frameworks to distort our vision. In this context, the Christian claim to see that the other is made in the image of God is simply a manifestation of a desire to reduce the other person to the categories of one's personal discourse and status quo as well as the power structures of the world that has constructed one's self and self-consciousness.” At this point, Trueman introduces a theme to which he returns repeatedly as he continues to unpack critical theory: How can a Christian respond to this? “I would suggest that it cannot be merely by way of argument. Reification is a real danger…Rather, we have to address it in and through community, specifically the community of the church. With rituals such as the sacraments, liturgies that bind us together, the proclamation of the gospel which sets our lives within the categories established by God (creation, fall, redemption, and consummation), and the Spirit-filled life of the community that is constituted by and flows from such, we enact our humanity. Surely it is no coincidence that hospitality, the opening of one's home to others, is a key mark of New Testament Christianity. In such an act we relate to others as persons like ourselves, not as things. One can write endlessly about not treating the other person as an object. But if the problem is consciousness - how we intuitively think about ourselves and about others the most powerful argument against such is not an argument; it is a way of life.”

The Sexual Revolution followed hot on the heels of the Frankfurt School, and in fact is a perfectly natural, though ultimately bitterly ironic, development of the framework that they established. As Trueman explains: “Nowhere in contemporary Western society is the impact of revolutionary changes in attitudes and behavior being felt more profoundly than in that of sex and sexuality. And this revolution, while being technologically enabled (How could sex come to be seen as primarily cost free and recreational, without such things as contraceptives, antibiotics, and abortion?), finds two of its most influential theorists in Reich and Marcuse. And, at root, what we witness in the sexual revolution is nothing less than a transformation in what it means to be human…The burden of the early critical theorists was to dismantle bourgeois society because it treated human beings as objects not subjects, as things not persons. Six decades past the 1960s and the sexual revolution they represented - not least as inspired by Reich, Marcuse, and their various epigoni - it is clear that sexual freedom has, perhaps more than anything in today's world, turned people into things…Sex is commodified and human beings are objectified…the sexualized revolution of Reich and Marcuse…is wishful thinking, a set of assertions built upon a highly tendentious understanding of human sexuality. They can hope that the demolition of sexual codes brings about utopia but they cannot know with any degree of certainty that it will do so. And the evidence thus far indicates that Freud, for all his faults, had a more realistic anthropology. Indeed, he actually had an anthropology. Reich and Marcuse had a dream, an anthropology deferred for a utopian future and such dreams can be highly dangerous when others attempt to make them a reality.”

When all this is said, and its bitter fruit is plain for all to see, it is natural for us to ask why we should bother with Critical Theory at all. The answer, contends Trueman, is obvious: “the categories and claims of critical theory are to a large extent the intuitions of our age. For sure, few have read Adorno and Horkheimer, still less the work of Lukács or Korsch. But the concepts that they developed at a theoretical level are the instincts of the political and cultural discourse of our age. Social relationships are reduced to matters of power and manipulation. Traditional morality is seen as a smoke screen for one group subordinating another. Stereotypes are understood as turning others into objects. And claims to truth are treated with suspicion. We instinctively ask not what is true, but who is making the truth claim and what ulterior motive they have for so doing. The list could go on but what is clear even from these is that the critique of ideology that drove the early critical theorists is, shorn of its self-conscious theoretical foundations, the intuitive spirit of the day. This is why having some grasp of those theoretical foundations is important. To echo Hegel, if you want to know about a given culture or society, you need to understand the philosophy that it embodies.”

And when asking how Christians should respond to the various forms of critical theory, he reminds us that “critical theory cannot be refuted on exclusively theoretical grounds. As we noted, critical theory is remarkably immune to such theoretical refutation…The way for Christians to acknowledge the importance of critical theory but also to refute it is therefore not simply by producing a more cogent theory. If the fundamental claim of critical theorists is that human beings live in an alienated state that leads them to think of others, and even themselves as individuals, as objects, as things enslaved by systems of power from which they cannot escape and over which they have no power, then Christianity must refute that claim by demonstrating its falsity in practice, or at least by showing that such alienation is not inevitable and insoluble. And the way to do that is in the church…If we take the Marxist notion, that humanity is something to be realized in the future. where the terms of being a free individual and belonging to a community will be overcome, then the church makes the claim that that is already realized in the here and now in the church itself. It is the inbreak of eschatological humanity into the present age…In the proclamation of the Word, in the administration of the sacraments, and in the communal liturgy of the worship service, a new vision of humanity is both realized and displayed before the world. Human relationships in this fallen world may well be typically characterized by power and manipulation; the church, empowered by the Spirit, is to be the place where an alternative reality is manifest, one characterized by love, service, and humility. When I ask God for forgiveness, when I for- give others, I drop my own claims to power. When I love and serve others as fellow Christians, regardless of the cultural categories of the world around us - in Paul's terms, Jew or Greek, today perhaps skin color or ethnicity - I treat them as persons, as subjects, even as I act as a free subject myself.”

In the end, critical theory recognises a legitimate symptom, but diagnoses the wrong disease and so prescribes the wrong cure. As Trueman explains: “the critical theorists of the early Frankfurt School saw something important, that humanity was not what it should be…And Christians surely have no quarrel with the central claims of such analysis. But they see these things as the result not of bourgeois culture created by capitalism but of human fallenness. Thus, they paradoxically see real hope, not in making earth into heaven, as the Marxists wished, nor in an endless dethroning of the powerful, but in embodying a little bit of heaven on earth in the church, the in-breaking of the end of time into time. The challenge to which critical theory therefore summons the church is to show, not merely to argue, that she has the answers. Critical theory does not so much provide Christians with a useful tool to think about the world as clarify a set of questions to which we have the answers already, if only we open our eyes to see them.”
So the call for Christians, as ever, is to live out our faith consistently and humbly before a watching world and to hold out a better hope as we do so. Dr. Trueman has rendered a true service to the church in writing this book, and there is much comfort and encouragement in knowing that our call as Christians remains the same as it did 2000 years ago.

[Vahid Askarpour · Rating 4 out of 5]

این کتاب را یک مبلغ مسیحیت سنت‌گرا نوشته است. او نشان می‌دهد که نظریهٔ انتقادی و خاستگاه‌های آن را خوب می‌شناسد و روی مارکسیسم اقتصادی و فرهنگی تسلط کامل دارد و به شیوایی می‌تواند رخدادهای معاصر منبعث از این جریان‌های فکری را ردگیری کند و شرح دهد. بااین‌حال آنچه ذهن من را به خصوص با خواندن جملات واپسین کتاب به شدّت مشغول کرده است، زاویهٔ دین‌مدارانهٔ نویسنده است که نوعی همدلی عجیب با مسائل و پرسش‌های هواداران نظریهٔ انتقادی ایجاد می‌کند و آدم را یاد «اتحاد سرخ و سیاه» می‌اندازد. او می‌گوید، یک مسیحی معتقد نباید نظریهٔ انتقادی را رد یا قبول کند، و نیازی هم ندارد که از نسخه‌های شیطانی و ناکارآمد هواداران آن پیروی کند. یک مسیحی واقعی باید پرسش‌های نظریهٔ انتقادی را به روشنی دریافت دارد و فهم کند، زیرا در این صورت متوجّه خواهد شد که پاسخ همهٔ آن پرسش‌ها از پیش در کتاب مقدس و ایمان مسیحی موجود است. مارکس و هواداران آن با انکار و رد فطرت و طبیعت آدمی، هرگز نخواهند توانست بهشت آسمانی را روی زمین بر پا کنند، در حالی که مؤمنان مسیحی از پیش، قطعه‌ای از بهشت را در پیکر کلیسا برپا داشته‌اند تا از ویژگی‌ها و صفات پلید انسان هبوط‌کرده (موضوع پرسش‌های بنیادین نظریهٔ انتقادی) به آن پناه ببرند.
حالا فقط کافی‌ست مسیحیت را با اسلام و کتاب مقدس را با قرآن جایگزین کنید!!

[Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you wonder what critical theory is and how it got started and evolved? If so, this book is for you! Starting with Hegel, the author makes his way through the early Marx, Ludwig Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Freud, Wilhelm Reich, the Frankfurt School, and Michel Foucault. The author clearly explains what critical theory is (that's a feat in itself) and how it evolved over the past couple of centuries. He spends a great deal of time on certain members of the Frankfurt School and how they tried to blend Marx and Freud in critiquing bourgeois culture. Philosophically speaking, critical theory is rather unstable and quite destructive. At the end of the book, the author wonders if there is anything in critical theory that might be compatible with Christian theology. In my opinion, very little. With the possible exception of Hegel, all the thinkers covered here were atheist materialists and their philosophies have little to nothing in common with authentic Christianity.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

IMO you need to already know at least a little something about Critical Theory before reading this. The book is (surprisingly) narrow in scope. As a history of the Frankfurt School, it’s informative and interesting, but for someone who’s trying to grasp the deeper meanings behind contemporary cultural conversations, I don’t think this is a good place to start. You won’t get a better understanding of key issues like standpoint epistemology, intersectionality, or a matrix of oppression; Trueman assumes you’re already familiar with those types of ideas that are downstream of the content he discusses here. So for what it is, a well-written resource, but not what I was hoping for personally (which was probably something closer to Cynical Theories by Pluckrose and Lindsay, but written by Trueman).

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm very thankful for Carl Trueman. He has the patience to wade through all this stuff, make sense of it, and explain it to me. Here's my crude summary: Critical Theory hates the present world and wants to change it entirely. What does the new world they want look like? They don't know, just not like this one. How do we as Christians answer CT? Less by argument than by embodiment; embodied in the contented life of the Christian individual, and embodied in the worship and fellowship of the Christian church. "We cannot simply be engaged in the game of showing the immanent contradictions of any given social arrangement, still less engage in negation, in some kind of great refusal. We must offer something better, a vision of what it means to be human and a taste of the transcendent" (224).

[Ed Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely feel like if I was smarter, I would’ve gotten more out of this book, but this book was still very helpful. Really appreciated the point that Trueman kept hammering home that the only way to refute the unfalsifiable claims of critical theory is through example in the life of the church and living. Particularly his point that asking for forgiveness from God and from others as giving up any “claim to power” we might have is insightful as in those moments we are acting in a way that turns critical theory on its head.

[Albert Norton · Rating 3 out of 5]

It felt like a superficial treatment. I'm pretty well-steeped in these topics so I'm trying not to ding him stars because it's not deeper. But I had forgotten (having previously read several of Trueman's other books) that I'm just not a fan of the writing style, much as I want to get into the content. I'd prefer fewer qualifiers, fewer hems and haws, and more direct, incisive language. It could be more spare and lucid.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another very important new book from Trueman. He surveys all the major thinkers in the development of the Frankfurt School and its legacy, with deep understanding and clear Christian evaluation. While not as massive as The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self , this book is just as important and continues Trueman's project of helping Christians think well about our times.

[Paul Pompa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carl, Truman is an excellent historian and author. The book subjective is to trace critical theory from its precursor to its current state. He spent most of the book examining the history through what I would consider a secular lens, but then spent the last chapter explaining how the church, and the Christian life lived well, counter the visions, conclusions, and claims of critical theory.

[Michael I · Rating 4 out of 5]

As good as it gets for secondary opinions. Amazing, clear prose and thorough understanding of critical theory and the philosophical tradition at large. His examples really demonstrate his understanding of dense works.



I did not know Trueman was Christian before reading this.

[Jon Merkling · Rating 5 out of 5]

The hardest book I've ever read. But very very enlightening!

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

A purely introductory text enumeration the basic positions of contributors of the Frankfurt School. One unlikeable thing is his sometime bringing up the Christian perspective.

[Joelendil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book serves as a decent introductory historical account of the development of critical theory through the time of the Frankfurt School. Trueman (who is primarily a historian) mostly describes its development without detailed analysis in terms of whether he thinks it’s right or wrong. He does occasionally make helpful comments on its inability to actually articulate what should be (as it merely seeks to tear down the status quo), and in the final chapter he gives thoughts on its incompatibility with Christianity.

The reason I didn’t give this a higher rating is its cursory treatment of the current iterations of critical theory (e.g. critical race theory, queer theory, intersectionality, etc.). One of Trueman’s underlying goals is to respond to criticism of a previous article he had written about CRT by demonstrating that critical theory’s current descendants do indeed rely on the work of Hegel, Marx, the Frankfurt School, etc. Unfortunately, this repeatedly takes the form of him saying some version of “See! This concept whose development I just traced in great detail is clearly used in CRT as well.”

Overall, there is a lot of great information here, but don’t expect much direct discussion of modern iterations even though they get mentioned in passing quite a bit.

[D. Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clear and convincing account of how we came to be confronted on every frontier by the scourge of Critical Theory.