He was famously hostile to biography as a literary form. And yet this life of Adorno by one of his last students is far more than literary in its accomplishments, giving us our first clear look at how the man and his moment met to create "critical theory." An intimate picture of the quintessential twentieth-century transatlantic intellectual, the book is also a window on the cultural ferment of Adorno's day--and its ongoing importance in our own.

The biography begins at the shining moment of the German bourgeoisie, in a world dominated by liberals willing to extend citizenship to...