{"title":"Books by Theodor W. Adorno","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780226007694","title":"Mahler","description":"Theodor W. Adorno goes beyond conventional thematic analysis to gain a more complete understanding of Mahler's music through his character, his social and philosophical background, and his moment in musical history. Adorno examines the composer's works as a continuous and unified development that began with his childhood response to the marches and folk tunes of his native Bohemia.   Since its appearance in 1960 in German, Mahler has established itself as a classic of musical interpretation. Now available in English, the work is presented here in a translation that captures the stylistic brilliance of the original.   Theodor W. Adorno (1903-69), one of the foremost members of the Frankfurt school of critical theory, studied with Alban Berg in Vienna during the late twenties, and was later the director of the Institute of Social Research at the University of Frankfurt from 1956 until his death. His works include Aesthectic Theory, Introduction to the Sociology of Music, The Jargon of Authenticity, Prism, and Philosophy of Modern Music.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56227498951029,"sku":"9780226007694","price":28.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780226007694_e3fee649-57f9-4e60-9247-b899f0808a14.jpg?v=1786012247"},{"product_id":"9780231179652","title":"Notes to Literature","description":"Notes to Literature is a collection of the great social theorist Theodor W. Adorno’s essays on such writers as Mann, Bloch, Hölderlin, Siegfried Kracauer, Goethe, Benjamin, and Stefan George. It also includes his reflections on a variety of subjects, such as literary titles, the physical qualities of books, political commitment in literature, the light-hearted and the serious in art, and the use of foreign words in writing. This edition presents this classic work in full in a single volume, with a new introduction by Paul Kottman.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56227597779317,"sku":"9780231179652","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780231179652_12469608-1923-41d0-8dc1-64a35ab723ca.jpg?v=1786012546"},{"product_id":"9780804736336","title":"Dialectic of Enlightenment","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDialectic of Enlightenment\u003c\/i\u003e is undoubtedly the most influential publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. \"What we had set out to do,\" the authors write in the Preface, \"was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eYet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment. The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAdorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the domination of external nature and society. They trace enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. \"Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology.\" This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work in the development of Critical Theory.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56294924157301,"sku":"9780804736336","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780804736336_d35f4898-93b1-460d-9606-a1120d2a3b3e.jpg?v=1786016350"},{"product_id":"9780857427090","title":"Night Music","description":"Although Theodor W. Adorno is best known for his association with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, he began his career as a composer and successful music critic. Night Music presents the first complete English translations of two collections of texts compiled by German philosopher and musicologist Adorno—Moments musicaux, containing essays written between 1928 and 1962, and Theory of New Music, a group of texts written between 1929 and 1955.   In Moments musicaux, Adorno echoes Schubert’s eponymous cycle, with its emphasis on aphorism, and offers lyrical reflections on music of the past and his own time. The essays include extended aesthetic analyses that demonstrate Adorno’s aim to apply high philosophical standards to the study of music. Theory of New Music, as its title indicates, presents Adorno’s thoughts and theories on the composition, reception, and analysis of the music that was being written around him. His extensive philosophical writing ultimately prevented him from pursuing the compositional career he had once envisaged, but his view of the modern music of the time is not simply that of a theorist, but clearly also that of a composer. Though his advocacy of the Second Viennese School, comprising composer Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, is well known, many of his writings in this field have remained obscure. Collected in their entirety for the first time in English, the insightful texts in Night Music show the breadth of Adorno’s musical understanding and reveal an overlooked side to this significant thinker.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56295032684917,"sku":"9780857427090","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780857427090_2c544d39-30f1-4b4d-8c5b-42e41511cc39.jpg?v=1786016248"},{"product_id":"9780745679426","title":"Philosophy and Sociology: 1960","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn summer 1960, Adorno gave the first of a series of lectures devoted to the relation between sociology and philosophy. One of his central concerns was to dispel the notion, erroneous in his view, that these were two incompatible disciplines, radically opposed in their methods and aims, a notion that was shared by many. While some sociologists were inclined to dismiss philosophy as obsolete and incapable of dealing with the pressing social problems of our time, many philosophers, influenced by Kant, believed that philosophical reflection must remain 'pure', investigating the constitution of knowledge and experience without reference to any real or material factors. By focusing on the problem of truth, Adorno seeks to show that philosophy and sociology share much more in common than many of their practitioners are inclined to assume.  Drawing on intellectual history, Adorno demonstrates the connection between truth and social context, arguing that there is no truth that cannot be manipulated by ideology and no theorem that can be wholly detached from social and historical considerations.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis systematic account on the interconnectedness of philosophy and sociology makes these lectures a timeless reflection on the nature of these disciplines and an excellent introduction to critical theory, the sociological content of which is here outlined in detail by Adorno for the first time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56296720892277,"sku":"9780745679426","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780745679426_a8dcb405-a47f-4a27-b936-aaa217543ba1.jpg?v=1786014691"},{"product_id":"9780745679402","title":"Aesthetics","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis volume of lectures on aesthetics, given by Adorno in the winter semester of 1958–9, formed the foundation for his later \u003ci\u003eAesthetic Theory\u003c\/i\u003e, widely regarded as one of his greatest works.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe lectures cover a wide range of topics, from an intense analysis of the work of Georg Lukács to a sustained reflection on the theory of aesthetic experience, from an examination of works by Plato, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Benjamin, to a discussion of the latest experiments of John Cage, attesting to the virtuosity and breadth of Adorno's engagement.  All the while, Adorno remains deeply connected to his surrounding context, offering us a window onto the artistic, intellectual and political confrontations that shaped life in post-war Germany.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis volume will appeal to a broad range of students and scholars in the humanities and social sciences, as well as anyone interested in the development of critical theory.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56297163391349,"sku":"9780745679402","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780745679402_52be79cc-3a16-4db7-85a3-dc10c4b1d6e4.jpg?v=1786014690"},{"product_id":"9780745679440","title":"An Introduction to Dialectics","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis volume comprises Adorno's first lectures specifically dedicated to the subject of the dialectic, a concept which has been key to philosophical debate since classical times. While discussing connections with Plato and Kant, Adorno concentrates on the most systematic development of the dialectic in Hegel's philosophy, and its relationship to Marx, as well as elaborating his own conception of dialectical thinking as a critical response to this tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDelivered in the summer semester of 1958, these lectures allow Adorno to explore and probe the significant difficulties and challenges this way of thinking posed within the cultural and intellectual context of the post-war period. In this connection he develops the thesis of a complementary relationship between positivist or functionalist approaches, particularly in the social sciences, as well as calling for the renewal of ontological and metaphysical modes of thought which attempt to transcend the abstractness of modern social experience by appeal to regressive philosophical categories. While providing an account of many central themes of Hegelian thought, he also alludes to a whole range of other philosophical, literary and artistic figures of central importance to his conception of critical theory, notably Walter Benjamin and the idea of a constellation of concepts as the model for an 'open or fractured dialectic' beyond the constraints of method and system.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThese lectures are seasoned with lively anecdotes and personal recollections which allow the reader to glimpse what has been described as the 'workshop' of Adorno's thought. As such, they provide an ideal entry point for all students and scholars in the humanities and social sciences who are interested in Adorno's work as well as those seeking to understand the nature of dialectical thinking.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56297553920373,"sku":"9780745679440","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780745679440_efec248a-8519-4dda-9381-0c4d136bc2d1.jpg?v=1786014693"},{"product_id":"9781509541454","title":"Aspects of the New Right-Wing Extremism","description":"On 6 April 1967, at the invitation of the Socialist Students of Austria at the University of Vienna, Theodor W. Adorno gave a lecture which is not merely of historical interest. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAgainst the background of the rise of the National Democratic Party of Germany, which had enjoyed remarkable electoral success in the first two years after its formation in November 1964, Adorno analysed the goals, resources and tactics of the new right-wing nationalism of this time. Contrasting it with the ‘old’ fascism of the Nazis, Adorno gave particular attention to the ways in which far-right movements elicited enthusiastic support in sections of the West German population, 20 years after the war had ended.   \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuch has changed since then, but some elements have remained the same or resurfaced in new forms, 50 years later. Adorno’s penetrating analysis of the sources of right-wing radicalism is as relevant today as it was five decades ago. It is a prescient message to future generations who find themselves embroiled once again in a struggle against a resurgent nationalism and right-wing extremism.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56301552599413,"sku":"9781509541454","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781509541454_1bbba551-3bfe-458a-90ca-79e3bb7fe6b7.jpg?v=1786021811"},{"product_id":"9781509552429","title":"Lectures 1949-1968, Volume 2","description":"When Theodor W. Adorno returned to Germany from his exile in the United States, he was appointed as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Frankfurt and he immediately made a name for himself as a leading public intellectual. Adorno’s widespread influence on the postwar debates was due in part to the public lectures he gave outside of the university in which he analysed and commented on social, cultural and political developments of the time. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e This second volume brings together Adorno’s lectures given between 1949 and 1968 on social and political themes. With an engaging and improvisational style, Adorno spoke with infectious vigour about architecture and city planning, the relationship between the individual and society, the authoritarian personality and far-right extremism, political education and the current state of sociology, among other subjects. After Auschwitz, it was incumbent on Germany to undertake intensive memory work and to confront the reality of its own moral destruction, while rebuilding its political and economic systems. To rebuild was taken to mean rediscovery and looking outward, but Adorno also nurtured a vision of tradition which – far from being unthinkingly conservative – would attest to society’s honestly-appraised relationship to the past while it underwent the process of modernization. The volume illustrates Adorno’s deep commitment to holding society to standards commensurate with the aspirations of a modern world emerging from the horrors of war.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e This volume of his lectures is a unique document of Adorno’s startling ability to bring critical theory into dialogue with the times in which he lived. It will be of great value to anyone interested in the work of Adorno and critical theory, in German intellectual and cultural history and in sociology and politics.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302241743221,"sku":"9781509552429","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781509552429_760cb8f1-7201-444c-8888-7e15b16267ef.jpg?v=1786021978"},{"product_id":"9781509566914","title":"Fighting Antisemitism Today","description":"In autumn 1962 Theodor W. Adorno gave a lecture on fighting antisemitism to the German Coordinating Council of Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation, a lecture that remains as topical and urgent today as it was in the 1960s.  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e After the Second World War, Germany was grappling with a reluctance to admit collective guilt for the horrors of the Holocaust and German society was witnessing the emergence of various forms of hidden or ‘crypto’ antisemitism. In his lecture Adorno demonstrated that antisemitism is a central and essential element of right-wing extremism and is identical in structure to racism. It is accompanied by an authoritarian mindset and a conformist anti-intellectualism. Moreover, a classic trick used by anti-Semites is to protest against taboos which prevent them from freely spreading their hate by classing them as a form of persecution, and to present themselves as victims of it. The only antidote to this poison is an unwavering loyalty to the truth in dealing with historical and political realities. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Adorno advocates an anti-authoritarian programme to prevent antisemitic character development and advises taking firm action against outbreaks of antisemitic behaviour. His brilliant analysis of the sources and dangers of antisemitism is as relevant now as it was sixty years ago.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302333297013,"sku":"9781509566914","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781509566914_854e0b84-3534-46c1-83e8-90f94aaacf42.jpg?v=1786022352"},{"product_id":"9781780936598","title":"Aesthetic Theory","description":"\u003cp\u003eTheodor Adorno (1903-69) was undoubtedly the foremost thinker of the Frankfurt School, the influential group of German thinkers that fled to the US in the 1930s, including such thinkers as Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer. His work has proved enormously influential in sociology, philosophy and cultural theory.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAesthetic Theory\u003c\/em\u003e is Adorno's posthumous magnum opus and the culmination of a lifetime's investigation. Analysing the sublime, the ugly and the beautiful, Adorno shows how such concepts frame and distil human experience and that it is human experience that ultimately underlies aesthetics. In Adorno's formulation ‘art is the sedimented history of human misery'.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304670540149,"sku":"9781780936598","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781780936598_5ab0166b-1bdf-496f-9437-2896ed3f9117.jpg?v=1786025556"},{"product_id":"9781509552399","title":"Lectures 1949-1968, Volume 1","description":"When Theodor W. Adorno returned to Germany from his exile in the United States, he was appointed as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Frankfurt and he immediately made a name for himself as a leading public intellectual. Adorno’s widespread influence on the postwar debates was due in part to the public lectures he gave outside of the university in which he analysed and commented on social, cultural and political developments of the time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis first volume brings together Adorno’s lectures given between 1949 and 1968 on music, literature and the arts. With an engaging and improvisational style, Adorno spoke with compelling enthusiasm on subjects as diverse as Marcel Proust’s prose, Richard Strauss’s composition technique and Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire. Germany, restoring its social and intellectual institutions, needed to embrace the new music and writers who had been neglected, particularly with regards to Proust. To rebuild was taken to mean rediscovery, but Adorno also nurtured a vision of tradition which – far from being unthinkingly conservative – would attest to society’s honestly-appraised relationship to the past while it underwent the process of modernization. The volume illustrates Adorno’s deep commitment to holding contemporary music and culture to standards commensurate with the aspirations of a modern world emerging from the horrors of war.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis volume of his lectures is a unique document of Adorno’s startling ability to bring critical theory into dialogue with the times in which he lived. It will be of great value to anyone interested in the work of Adorno and critical theory, in German intellectual and cultural history and in the history of modern music and the arts.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56312510251381,"sku":"9781509552399","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781509552399_2f35e939-cd71-4da3-bf3b-73e209d2272a.jpg?v=1786021977"},{"product_id":"the-culture-industry","title":"The Culture Industry","description":"This book is an unrivalled indictment of the banality of mass culture - Adorno's finest essays are collected here, offering the reader unparalleled insights into Adorno's thoughts on culture.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466812858741,"sku":"9780415253802","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780415253802.jpg?v=1785654880"},{"product_id":"dream-notes","title":"Dream Notes","description":"\"Dreams are as black as death.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Theodor W. Adorno\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   \u003cp\u003eAdorno was fascinated by his dreams and wrote them down throughout his life. He envisaged publishing a collection of them although in the event no more than a few appeared in his lifetime.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDream Notes\u003c\/i\u003e offers a selection of Adornos writings on dreams that span the last twenty-five years of his life. Readers of Adorno who are accustomed to high-powered reflections on philosophy, music and culture may well find them disconcerting: they provide an amazingly frank and uninhibited account of his inner desires, guilt feelings and anxieties. Brothel scenes, torture and executions figure prominently. They are presented straightforwardly, at face value. No attempt is made to interpret them, to relate them to the events of his life, to psychoanalyse them, or to establish any connections with the principal themes of his philosophy.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAre they fiction, autobiography or an attempt to capture a pre-rational, quasi-mythic state of consciousness? No clear answer can be given. Taken together they provide a highly consistent picture of a dimension of experience that is normally ignored, one that rounds out and deepens our knowledge of Adorno while retaining something of the enigmatic quality that energized his own thought.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57507841311093,"sku":"9780745638300","price":40.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780745638300.jpg?v=1787042981"},{"product_id":"how-to-listen-to-music","title":"How to Listen to Music","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat happens when we stop listening for what we already know and begin following music on its own terms? In three lectures presented in schools and on the radio in the 1950s and 1960s, Theodor W. Adorno offers a practical guide.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRather than cataloging forms, styles, and influences, Adorno asks readers to attend to music as it unfolds. A phrase recalls what came before, a new gesture alters what we have heard, and tension gathers or falls away. Hearing these relationships is what Adorno calls \"\"structural listening.\"\" The listener does not change the work, but connects its parts as it unfolds. Listening becomes a form of co-composing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAdorno takes readers beneath familiar forms and formulas to what he calls music’s \"\"subcutaneous\"\" level, where motifs and phrases answer, develop, and reshape one another. This method is especially illuminating for the atonal and twelve-tone works of the Second Viennese School, often regarded as forbidding or inaccessible. Yet Adorno also uses it to uncover affinities across classical, romantic, and modernist traditions. Drawing on passages by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Berg, Mahler, Ravel, and others, he shows how close attention can make structure and beauty more vivid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor Adorno, listening closely also has a social meaning. It resists the distracted consumption of isolated fragments and strengthens attention, imagination, and independent judgment. Written for nonspecialists and rich with musical examples, \u003ci\u003eHow to Listen to Music\u003c\/i\u003e presents Adorno as a teacher who wants readers not only to know more about music, but to hear more in it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57682564383093,"sku":"9781531515942","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":57555386270069,"sku":"9781531515935","price":84.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781531515942_05a6d8b7-bba2-48ff-b8c3-e38838b71731.jpg?v=1792511503"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-theodor-w-adorno.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}