Culture Industry

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-69). One of the towering intellectual figures of the twentieth century, and a leading member of the influential group of critical theorists known as the Frankfurt School. His works include Aesthetic Theory, Mahler, The Jargon of Authenticity and Negative Dialectics.

'A volume of Adorno's essays is equivalent to a whole shelf of books on literature.' - Susan Sontag'Adorno expounds what may be called a new philosophy of consciousness. His philosophy lives, dangerously but also fruitfully, in proximity to an ascetic puritanical moral rage, an attachment to some items in the structure and vocabulary of Marxism, and a feeling that human suffering is the only important thing and makes nonsense of everything else ... Adorno is a political thinker who wishes to bring about radical change. He is also a philosopher, with a zest for metaphysics, who is at home in the western philosophical tradition.' - Iris Murdoch'A highly misanthropic but very funny and true analysis of the power and effect of the mass media.' - Alain de Botton, Daily Telegraph

• A cknowledgements I ntroduction -- On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening -- The Schema of Mass Culture -- Culture Industry Reconsidered -- Culture and Administration -- Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda -- How to Look at Television -- Transparencies on Film -- Free Time -- Resignation -- Name I ndex S ubject I ndex