About the Author

Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) was a leading figure in the Frankfurt School and one of the twentieth century's most demanding intellectuals. Recognized for his contributions to the fields of philosophy, sociology, aesthetics, literary criticism, and musicology, Adorno continues to be a thinker of extraordinary influence and importance in Germany, and his reputation continues to grow in the English-speaking world as his many works are translated. Jeffrey K. Olick is Professor of Sociology and History, University of Virginia. Andrew J. Perrin is Associate Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Reviews

I am thrilled that Theodor Adorno's Guilt and Defense: On the Legacies of National Socialism in Postwar Germany has eventually been translated and published in a fine American edition. This book documents Adorno's qualitative interpretations of group discussions that were conducted by the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt and entailed different strata of German society short after WWII and the Holocaust. Here you can read and learn about what average Germans thought in the late 1940s, and how Adorno reconstructed their ideas. This is the best insight into immediate post-War Germany you will ever get. Anyone interested in post-War German politics and culture needs to take a close look at this. Maybe nothing for the beach, either. But for any intellectual interested in 20th century Germany: Indispensable.
*Princeton University Press blog*