Why a new study of Horkheimer and early critical theory?

This study has two main purposes, which overlap but are not identical. First, it is intended as a comprehensive intellectual biography of Max Horkheimer from 1895, when he was born, to 1941, which marks the threshold of a new phase in Horkheimer’s life and thought. Several excellent general studies of the development of Critical Theory as a whole have been written. However, the publication of Horkheimer’s Collected Writings and the opening of the Max Horkheimer Archives have made available much previously unknown or unavailable material, which has made a reassessment of Horkheimer’s work possible. This study draws on this material as well as the extensive secondary literature on Horkheimer in German and the much less extensive literature in English. In general, the focus is directed primarily – and unapologetically – to Horkheimer’s thought. Examination of the biographical details of Horkheimer’s life or the lives of those who influenced him is in most cases limited to what is necessary to explain the development of his ideas. In the first two chapters, which treat Horkheimer’s childhood, youth, and student years, more attention is devoted to biographical context. Beginning with the third chapter, Horkheimer’s theoretical work and those writings of his colleagues, which contribute to an understanding of his own writings, become the central concern. Although I have sought to refer to and build on earlier scholarship rather than repeat it, some repetition has been unavoidable in order to present a coherent narrative. To be sure, I have drawn on previous, general treatments of the history of Critical Theory, such Martin Jay’s still unsurpassed Dialectical Imagination and Rolf Wiggershaus’s The Frankfurt School, but I have also sought to revise and deepen their accounts, when necessary. In addition, the principal and subsidiary arguments presented here have been developed in dialogue with a number of other authors who have written studies that either focus primarily on Horkheimer or present particularly incisive or influential interpretations of his work.