Radical Thinkers Classics: Minima Moralia, Culture and Materialism, For Marx, Aesthetics and Politics (Shrinkwrapped Set) (Vol. 1-4)

by Theodor W. Adorno, Louis Althusser, Walter Benjamin

Four classic Verso titles in beautifully designed hardcovers, shrinkwrapped as a set, to commemorate Verso's 40 years at the forefront of theory publishing. In Radical Thinkers Classics , Verso reissues, in elegantly designer new hardcovers, four classic theory books. This set of four volumes

Minima Moralia by Theodor Adorno : A reflection on everyday existence in the 'sphere of consumption of late Capitalism', this work is Adorno's literary and philosophical masterpiece built from aphorisms and reflections, shifting in register from personal experience to the most general theoretical problems.

For Marx by Louis Althusser : the founding text of the school of “structuralist Marxism” which was presided over by the fascinating and enigmatic figure of Louis Althusser. Structuralism constituted an intellectual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s and radically transformed the way philosophy, political and social theory, history, science, and aesthetics were discussed and thought about.

Culture and Materialism by Raymond Williams : A comprehensive introduction to the work of one of the outstanding intellectuals of the twentieth century, Williams's most significant work from over a twenty-year period in which he wrestled with the concepts of materialism and culture and their interrelationship.

Aesthetics and Politics by Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, and Georg Lukacs : The most remarkable aesthetic debates in European cultural history, with an afterword by Fredric Jameson. The key texts of the great Marxist controversies over literature and art during these years are assembled in this single volume—a continuous, interlinked debate between thinkers who have become giants of twentieth-century intellectual history.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published June 9, 2009

About the author

Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno was one of the most important philosophers and social critics in Germany after World War II. Although less well known among anglophone philosophers than his contemporary Hans-Georg Gadamer, Adorno had even greater influence on scholars and intellectuals in postwar Germany. In the 1960s he was the most prominent challenger to both Sir Karl Popper's philosophy of science and Martin Heidegger's philosophy of existence. Jürgen Habermas, Germany's foremost social philosopher after 1970, was Adorno's student and assistant. The scope of Adorno's influence stems from the interdisciplinary character of his research and of the Frankfurt School to which he belonged. It also stems from the thoroughness with which he examined Western philosophical traditions, especially from Kant onward, and the radicalness to his critique of contemporary Western society. He was a seminal social philosopher and a leading member of the first generation of Critical Theory.

Unreliable translations hampered the initial reception of Adorno's published work in English speaking countries. Since the 1990s, however, better translations have appeared, along with newly translated lectures and other posthumous works that are still being published. These materials not only facilitate an emerging assessment of his work in epistemology and ethics but also strengthen an already advanced reception of his work in aesthetics and cultural theory.