This is the definitive study of the history and accomplishments of the Frankfurt School. It offers elegantly written portraits of the major figures in the school's history as well as overviews of the various positions and directions they developed from the founding years just after World War I until the death of Theodor Adorno in 1969.The book is based on documentary and biographical materials that have only recently become available. As the narrative follows the Institute for Social Research from Frankfurt am Main to Geneva, New York, and Los Angeles, and then back to Frankfurt, Wiggershaus continually ties the evolution of the school to the changing intellectual and political contexts in which it operated. He also interweaves these accounts with incisive summaries of substantive works by Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Fromm, Kirchheimer, Lowenthal, Marcuse, Neumann, Pollock, and Habermas.The book is self-contained and can serve as a general introduction to critical theory, but it also has a wealth of new material to offer those who are familiar with this tradition but would like to learn more about its history and context.Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought

罗尔夫·魏格豪斯，1944年出于德国的伍珀塔尔（Wuppertal），在西奥多·W.阿多诺等人指导下学习哲学、社会学和德国文学，并于1974年在于尔根·哈贝马斯指导下取得博士学位。一直担任自由撰稿人并兼任多所大学讲师。代表作《法兰克福学派：历史、理论及政治影响》出版于1986年（2001年再版），并被译成多种语言出版。此外，他还出版过研究维特根斯坦、阿多诺、霍克海默和哈贝马斯的数本专著。