Stuart Jeffries

Even though I essentially have a MS in sociology over time I mostly managed to avoid coming into serious contact with the austerely intellectual men (and they were all men) of the Institute for Social Research, but there comes a time for everything, particularly when personalities who I know aren't particularly intellectual are bandying around "The Authoritarian Personality" like it was some sort of news. What particularly makes this book is that Jeffries takes these thinkers seriously, but show more no more seriously than they deserve, as the vista of, essentially, a bunch of rich kids playing with revolutionary thought while at the same time never actually engaging with real proletarians is certainly laughable. That said much of this book is also as serious as death, as the great totalitarian specter is still with us, plus the fear that what makes us human is also inadequate to cope with the great systems of consumption and communication, and "security" that we've constructed. The author ends the book on a somewhat jaundiced note, as Jeffries sets aside his well-honed sense of irony, observing that as we stumble through the shattered landscape of the failing neoconservative globalist system sometimes a cold wake-up call is the best you can do; the Frankfurt School never purported to do anything more than that, but they tried to do it rigorously. show less

I agree with the other reviewers who note this book's strength's and flaws. I'd add that this book is painfully androcentric. For instance, in the first chapter, women belonging to men as sexual property is unproblematically mentioned and unexamined (39). Later, the author points out how odd it is that there were no prominent Franfurt School women theorists, but concludes that it's fine: a paragraph in Adorno is feminist enough (234-5). Find an intersectional book on the Frankfurt School. show more This one is so limited as to be near-worthless. show less

A clearly written and very informative history of the Frankfurt School and its thinkers. Most of my exposure to the Frankfurt School authors has been through the writings of Walter Benjamin, but Grand Hotel Abyss provides a head start in understanding the writings and theories of the other players. Very much recommended if you are interested in this fascinating slice of history, especially since so much of what the Frankfurt writers had to contend with politically at the time is now, in show more 2017, so completely timely. show less

3.5 stars
Tandem read with Joel, who was quick to question Jeffries' style, a wonky all too clever sort of exposition qua allusion. There were certainly times to grit one's teeth. I agree with others that it is a page-turner, this is a surprise given the thematics. This is an episodic chronicle of the Institute of Social Research a Frankfurt think tank tasked in its inception in 1920 with the query why wasn't the revolution successful in Germany? The book’s title refers to a musing by show more Lukács that the FS guys (gents only for a long time) were ensconced in a retreat from the gruesome reality they were committed to understanding, if not ending.

The book opens with the claim that the founders of the Institute were all the egg headed sons of assimilated Jews, a group of bookish sorts who uniformly deeply disappointed their fathers. Thus begins the lifelong crusade to wed Marx and Freud. Biographic stretches link this narrative, largely one of Walter Benjamin. Thoughts on the public/private, Brecht and suicide proliferate, often linking with Jeffries posturing on Beckett or Woody Allen. This becomes part and parcel of this meandering history. Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse and Habermas gather most of the attention. The thesis remains a social critique without any ability to explain or empower. This is very Monday-morning but it does appear rough to kick the institute for not only not explaining Germany's inability to follow Marx's historical imperative but how instead it went so horribly wrong with the advent of the National Socialist party. Adorno/Horkheimer decided after the Shoah that perhaps the Enlightenment itself and the regulation of Logos was to blame. This lead to some tricky thinking where Adorno/Horkheimer proposed that only intermittent flashes by solitary thinkers could pierce this damning delusion. Marcuse meanwhile became the Dylan of Theory (at least outside of Francophone academia) until he may or may not have collapsed under his own contradictions -- which left Habermas as carrying the fire and deciding that compassion of a religious ethic may be necessary in the pits of canine competition. This was enjoyable but somehow wanting. I do wish to embark on a further Benjamin endeavor, this time focused on Baudelaire. show less