Herbert Marcuse

Herbert Marcuse ( ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin into a Jewish family, Marcuse studied at the universities of Berlin and Freiburg. He was a prominent figure in the Frankfurt-based Institute for Social Research - what later became known as the Frankfurt School. He was married to Sophie Wertheim (1924-1951), Inge Neumann (1955-1972), and Erica Sherover (1976-1979). Active in the United States after 1934, his intellectual concerns were the dehumanizing effects of capitalism and modern technology.

After his studies, in the late 1960s and the 1970s he became known as the preeminent theorist of the New Left and the student movements of Germany, France, and the USA. Between 1943 and 1950, Marcuse worked in US Government Service, which helped form the basis of his book Soviet Marxism (1964). Celebrated as the "Father of the New Left," his best known works are Eros and Civilization (1955) and One-Dimensional Man (1964). His Marxist scholarship inspired many radical intellectuals and political activists in the 1960s and '70s, both in the U.S. and internationally.

Read more about Herbert Marcuse:  Philosophy and Views, Bibliography

Famous quotes containing the words herbert marcuse, herbert and/or marcuse:

    Self-determination, the autonomy of the individual, asserts itself in the right to race his automobile, to handle his power tools, to buy a gun, to communicate to mass audiences his opinion, no matter how ignorant, how aggressive, it may be.
    Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)

    Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
    Though foolishly he lost the same,
    Decaying more and more,
    —George Herbert (1593–1633)

    The web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and this society is fatally entangled in it.
    —Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)