- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Verso (22 Nov 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1844676617
- ISBN-13: 978-1844676613
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.9 x 2.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 727,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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A classic of twentieth century thought whose translation is by far the best yet done of any work of Critical Theory. --Times Literary Supplement
I bought Theodor Adorno's Minima Moralia in June 1986 from Compendium in Camden, London (a Mecca, back then, for theory-hungry radicals) and read it, intermittently, throughout the summer in Brixton. Given the diversity of these 'Reflections From Damaged Life' compiled in the molten core of the 20th century it's not surprising that what I recall is less the specific content of the book than the experience of reading it, the current coursing through its pages. Dialectical thought 'an attempt to break through the coercion of logic by its own means. But since it must use these means, it is at every moment in danger of itself acquiring a coercive character' is taken to an extreme that is aesthetic (the first section is 'For Marcel Proust') as well as cerebral. Needless to say, I couldn't understand all of it; still can't, to be honest, but this passage means more to me now than it did 25 years ago: 'Slippers are designed to be slipped into without help from the hand. They are monuments to the hatred of bending down.' --Geoff Dyer, Guardian
I bought Theodor Adorno's Minima Moralia in June 1986 from Compendium in Camden, London (a Mecca, back then, for theory-hungry radicals) and read it, intermittently, throughout the summer in Brixton. Given the diversity of these 'Reflections From Damaged Life' compiled in the molten core of the 20th century it's not surprising that what I recall is less the specific content of the book than the experience of reading it, the current coursing through its pages. Dialectical thought 'an attempt to break through the coercion of logic by its own means. But since it must use these means, it is at every moment in danger of itself acquiring a coercive character' is taken to an extreme that is aesthetic (the first section is 'For Marcel Proust') as well as cerebral. Needless to say, I couldn't understand all of it; still can't, to be honest, but this passage means more to me now than it did 25 years ago: 'Slippers are designed to be slipped into without help from the hand. They are monuments to the hatred of bending down.' --Geoff Dyer, Guardian
Sunday Times
‘A primary intellectual document of this age.’
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Minima Moralia consists of loosely connected meditations and ponderings on society and culture. Adorno was clearly an incredibly perceptive mind, and these rueful meditations observe how the wider forces of capitalism creep into the minutiae of our lives. Adorno laments the brusque and utilitarian quality of door shutting, the demise of the French brothel, as well as making broader digs at targets like revolutionary communism. Minima Moralia, and this is probably the best compliment you can pay so called critical theory, is a provocative and quite depressing work, showcasing Adorno's seemingly endless disgust toward life in capitalist society. I'd say it ranks with the works of other great provocateurs like Nietzsche and Foucault, doing the Socratic job of making us uncomfortable about how we are living our lives.
Minima Moralia is also a nice companion volume to Adorno and Horkheimer's more widely read "Dialectic of Enlightenment". Adorno's thinking is more relaxed and concrete here, showing his talent for a telling story and a wry observation. You could, rather simplistically, read Minima Moralia as a catalogue of the sort of observations that led to the Dialectic's grand theses about Enlightnement and modern reason. For those like me who found the Dialectic infuriating, this work gives you some insight into what led to Adorno and Horkheimer's rather baffling claims.
Minima Moralia is also a nice companion volume to Adorno and Horkheimer's more widely read "Dialectic of Enlightenment". Adorno's thinking is more relaxed and concrete here, showing his talent for a telling story and a wry observation. You could, rather simplistically, read Minima Moralia as a catalogue of the sort of observations that led to the Dialectic's grand theses about Enlightnement and modern reason. For those like me who found the Dialectic infuriating, this work gives you some insight into what led to Adorno and Horkheimer's rather baffling claims.
19 of 45 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Fragmented genius that distances negativity from nihilism. His innumerable interventions into a gaping spectrum of social praxis reveals another dialectic to the method of this astonishing mind: latent conservatism underpinning prosaic Marxism. Nevertheless, Adorno systematically pre-empts to division of the social-science academy; 'Tough Baby' anticipates the emergence of 'Queer theory'; 'How sickly seem all growing things' provides a valuable introduction to the complex dialectic of the Critical Realists; whilst the continual anti-nazi polemic vis-a-vis Spengler and Carl Schmitt should be compulsory reading for those 'Critical' Legal Scholars hell-bent on the rehabilitation of Schmitt, Heidegger et al.
1 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Thank you very much for this...I look forward to ordering more books off you shortly.
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