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There is no more contentious and perennial issue in the history of modern Western thought than the vexed relationship between the genesis of an idea and its claim to validity beyond it. Can ideas or values transcend their temporal origins and overcome the sin of their original context, and in so doing earn abiding respect for their intrinsic merit? Or do they inevitably reflect them in ways that undermine their universal aspirations? Are discrete contexts so incommensurable and unique that the smooth passage of ideas from one to the other is impossible? Are we always trapped by the limits of our own cultural standpoints and partial perspectives, or can we somehow escape their constraints and enter into a fruitful dialogue with others?These persistent questions are at the heart of the discipline known as intellectual history, which deals not only with ideas, but also with the men and women who generate, disseminate, and criticize them. The essays in this collection, by one of the most recognized figures in the field, address them through engagement with leading intellectual historians—Hans Blumenberg, Quentin Skinner, Hayden White, Isaiah Berlin, Frank Ankersmit—as well other giants of modern thought—Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Georg Lukács. They touch on a wide variety of related topics, ranging from the heroism of modern life to the ability of photographs to lie. In addition, they explore the fraught connections between philosophy and theory, the truth of history and the truthfulness of historians, and the weaponization of free speech for other purposes.

Although successive generations of the Frankfurt School have attempted to adapt Critical Theory to new circumstances, the work done by its founding members continues in the 21st century to unsettle conventional wisdom about culture, society and politics. Exploring unexamined episodes in the School's history and reading its work in unexpected ways, these essays provide ample evidence of the abiding relevance of Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, L�wenthal, and Kracauer in our troubled times. Without forcing a unified argument, they range over a wide variety of topics, from the uncertain founding of the School to its mixed reception of psychoanalysis, from Benjamin's ruminations on stamp collecting to the ironies in the reception of Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man, from L�wenthal's role in Weimar's Jewish Renaissance to Horkheimer's involvement in the writing of the first history of the Frankfurt School. Of special note are their responses to visual issues such as the emancipation of color in modern art, the Jewish prohibition on images, the relationship between cinema and the public sphere, and the implications of a celebrated Family of Man photographic exhibition. The collection ends with two essays tracing the still metastasizing demonization of the Frankfurt School by the so-called Alt Right as the source of'cultural Marxism'and'political correctness,'which has gained alarming international resonance and led to violence by radical right-wing fanatics.

Assessing the legacy of the Frankfurt School in the twenty-first centuryAlthough successive generations of the Frankfurt School have attempted to adapt Critical Theory to new circumstances, the work done by its founding members continues in the 21st century to unsettle conventional wisdom about culture, society and politics. Exploring unexamined episodes in the School's history and reading its work in unexpected ways, these essays provide ample evidence of the abiding relevance of Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Löwenthal, and Kracauer in our troubled times. Without forcing a unified argument, they range over a wide variety of topics, from the uncertain founding of the School to its mixed reception of psychoanalysis, from Benjamin's ruminations on stamp collecting to the ironies in the reception of Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man, from Löwenthal's role in Weimar's Jewish Renaissance to Horkheimer's involvement in the writing of the first history of the Frankfurt School. Of special note are their responses to visual issues such as the emancipation of color in modern art, the Jewish prohibition on images, the relationship between cinema and the public sphere, and the implications of a celebrated Family of Man photographic exhibition. The collection ends with two essays tracing the still metastasizing demonization of the Frankfurt School by the so-called Alt Right as the source of'cultural Marxism'and'political correctness,'which has gained alarming international resonance and led to violence by radical right-wing fanatics.