Critical Theory - A Very Short Introduction

Critical theory emerged in the 1920s from the work of the Frankfurt School, the circle of German-Jewish academics who sought to diagnose - and, if at all possible, cure - the ills of society, particularly fascism and capitalism. In this book, Stephen Eric Bronner provides sketches of leading representatives of the critical tradition (such as George Lukacs and Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas) as well as many of its séminal texts and empirical investigations.
The book also sheds light on the cluster of ideas and themes that set critical theory apart from its more traditional philosophical competitors, explaining concepts such as method and agency, alienation and reification, the culture industry and repressive tolerance, non-identity and utopia.