Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Naples 1925: Adorno, Benjamin, and the Summer That Made Critical Theory

Naples 1925: Adorno, Benjamin, and the Summer That Made Critical Theory

Mittelmeier, Martin
Frisch, Shelley

Hardcover

Series: Margellos World Republic of Letters

PhilosophyGeneral World HistoryItalian History

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0300259301
ISBN13: 9780300259308
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: Nov 12 2024
Pages: 200
Weight: 0.55
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.10 Depth: 7.80
Language: English
The untold story of how the volcanic landscape surrounding Naples influenced a crucial moment in twentieth-century intellectual history

A New Yorker Best Book of 2024 Selection

Well-written--and well-translated.--Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal

In the 1920s, the Gulf of Naples was a magnet for European intellectuals in search of places as yet untouched by modernity. Among the revolutionaries, artists, and thinkers drawn to Naples were numerous scholars at a formative stage in their journeys: Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, Alfred Sohn-Rethel, Asja Lacis, Theodor W. Adorno, and many others. While all were indelibly shaped by the volcanic Neapolitan landscape, it was Benjamin who first probed the relationship between the porous landscape and the local culture. But Adorno went further, transforming his surroundings into a radical new philosophy--one that became a turning point in the modern history of the discipline.

In this ingenious book, Martin Mittelmeier reveals the Gulf of Naples as the true birthplace of the Frankfurt School. From the majestic crater rim of Mount Vesuvius to the soft volcanic rock that Neapolitans used to build their city, Mittelmeier follows Adorno's and his fellow thinkers' footsteps through the cities along the gulf, demonstrating how their observations and encounters surface again and again in their writings for decades to come, and serve as the structuring principle of Critical Theory.

Also in

General World History

View All