Adorno A Biography

'Even the biographical individual is a social category', wroteAdorno. 'It can only be defined in a living context together withothers.' In this major new biography, Stefan Muller-Doohm turnsthis maxim back on Adorno himself and provides a rich andcomprehensive account of the life and work of one of the mostbrilliant minds of the twentieth century. This authoritative biography ranges across the whole of Adorno'slife and career, from his childhood and student years to his yearsin emigration in the United States and his return to postwarGermany. At the same time, Muller-Doohm examines the full range ofAdorno's writings on philosophy, sociology, literary theory, musictheory and cultural criticism. Drawing on an array of sources fromAdorno's personal correspondence with Horkheimer, Benjamin, Berg,Marcuse, Kracauer and Mann to interviews, notes and both publishedand unpublished writings, Muller-Doohm situates Adorno'scontributions in the context of his times and provides a rich andbalanced appraisal of his significance in the 20th Century as awhole. Muller-Doohm's clear prose succeeds in making accessible some ofthe most complex areas of Adorno's thought. This outstandingbiography will be the standard work on Adorno for years to come.