Marginal Institute figures outshone core members in postwar American influence.

Evidence

Whether or not the Institut would have succeeded in becoming a major force in American intellectual life if it had remained is thus a moot point. The members who chose to stay certainly thought it would have 61 Marcuse’s sudden popularity in the i96o’s, based largely on writings whose general direction was foreshadowed in the Frankfurt School’s earlier work, suggests that they might well have been correct. What happened instead was that less central figures in the Institut’s history, such as Fromm, Neumann, and Wittfogel, acquired impressive followings, while Horkheimer remained a generally unknown figure in postwar America. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 888

Categorization

• QUESTION: Curious about the mechanism: why did Fromm, Neumann, and Wittfogel break through while Horkheimer stayed obscure — content, networks, or style of writing?