Late Marxism: Adorno, Or, the Persistence of the Dialectic - Paperback

In the name of an assault on "totalization" and "identity," a number of contemporary theorists have been busily washing Marxism's dialectical and utopian projects down the plug-hole of postmodernism and "post-politics." A case in point is recent interpretation of one of the greatest twentieth-century philosophers, Theodor Adorno. In this powerful book, Fredric Jameson proposes a radically different reading of Adorno's work, especially of his major works on philosophy and aesthetics: Negative Dialectics and Aesthetic Theory.

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Theodor Adorno is widely recognized as one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century, as a foremost cultural critic and philosopher, and one of the most important figures in the Frankfurt School and Western Marxism more generally. And yet, Adorno's reputation has suffered from accusations about his alleged pessimism and, even worse, from attempts by postmodernists to recruit him to their war against all 'grand narratives', including, most importantly, Marxism itself. In this work Fredric Jameson rescues Adorno from the claws of his critics and the clutches of his false friends. Jameson sees Adorno as not only a thinker whose contribution to Marxism was unique and indispensable, but also as the theorist of late capitalism. Late Marxism introduces Adorno's thought to a new generation of dissidents and demonstrates the freshness and relevance of dialectical thinking to criticism and resistance today.