×


 x 

Shopping cart
Theodor W. Adorno - Guilt and Defense: On the Legacies of National Socialism in Postwar Germany - 9780674036031 - V9780674036031
Stock image for illustration purposes only - book cover, edition or condition may vary.

Guilt and Defense: On the Legacies of National Socialism in Postwar Germany

€ 76.67
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for Guilt and Defense: On the Legacies of National Socialism in Postwar Germany Hardback. A psychoanalytically informed analysis of the rhetorical and conceptual mechanisms with which postwar Germans most often denied responsibility for the Nazi past. It provides important perspectives on postwar German political culture, on the dynamics of collective memory, and on Adorno's intellectual legacies. Num Pages: 256 pages, 1 table. BIC Classification: 1DFG; 3JJP; HBJD; HBLW; HPS; JHB. Category: (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly. Dimension: 237 x 164 x 22. Weight in Grams: 526.
Beginning in 1949, Theodor W. Adorno and other members of the reconstituted Frankfurt Institute for Social Research undertook a massive empirical study of German opinions about the legacies of the Nazis, applying and modifying techniques they had learned during their U.S. exile. They published their results in 1955 as a research monograph edited by Friedrich Pollock. The study's qualitative results are published here for the first time in English as Guilt and Defense, a psychoanalytically informed analysis of the rhetorical and conceptual mechanisms with which postwar Germans most often denied responsibility for the Nazi past. In their editorial introduction, Jeffrey K. Olick and Andrew J. Perrin show how Adorno’s famous 1959 essay “The Meaning of Working through the Past,” is comprehensible only as a conclusion to his long-standing research and as a reaction to the debate it stirred; this volume also includes a critique by psychologist Peter R. Hoffstater as well as Adorno’s rejoinder. This previously little-known debate provides important new perspectives on postwar German political culture, on the dynamics of collective memory, and on Adorno’s intellectual legacies, which have contributed more to empirical social research than has been acknowledged. A companion volume, Group Experiment and Other Writings, will present the first book-length English translation of the Frankfurt Group's conceptual, methodological, and theoretical innovations in public opinion research.

Product Details

Format
Hardback
Publication date
2010
Publisher
Harvard University Press United States
Number of pages
256
Condition
New
Number of Pages
256
Place of Publication
Cambridge, Mass, United States
ISBN
9780674036031
SKU
V9780674036031
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1

About Theodor W. Adorno
Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) was a leading figure in the Frankfurt School and one of the twentieth century's most demanding intellectuals. Recognized for his contributions to the fields of philosophy, sociology, aesthetics, literary criticism, and musicology, Adorno continues to be a thinker of extraordinary influence and importance in Germany, and his reputation continues to grow in the English-speaking world as his many works are translated. Jeffrey K. Olick is Professor of Sociology and History, University of Virginia. Andrew J. Perrin is Associate Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Reviews for Guilt and Defense: On the Legacies of National Socialism in Postwar Germany
I am thrilled that Theodor Adorno's Guilt and Defense: On the Legacies of National Socialism in Postwar Germany has eventually been translated and published in a fine American edition. This book documents Adorno's qualitative interpretations of group discussions that were conducted by the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt and entailed different strata of German society short after WWII and the Holocaust. Here you can read and learn about what average Germans thought in the late 1940s, and how Adorno reconstructed their ideas. This is the best insight into immediate post-War Germany you will ever get. Anyone interested in post-War German politics and culture needs to take a close look at this. Maybe nothing for the beach, either. But for any intellectual interested in 20th century Germany: Indispensable.
Lars Rensmann
Princeton University Press blog

Goodreads reviews for Guilt and Defense: On the Legacies of National Socialism in Postwar Germany


Subscribe to our newsletter

News on special offers, signed editions & more!