This widely acclaimed book is a comprehensive and authoritative account of the history and ideas of the Frankfurt School - the most important and influential group of leftist intellectuals, philosophers and social theorists in Germany this century.

Wiggershaus traces the history of the School from its establishment in the early years of the Weimar Republic, through the period of exile in America, to the post-war phase in Frankfurt and the emergence of a younger generation of critical theorists in the 1960s.

He combines biographical profiles of the key figures in the...