Western Marxism was effectively unknown in America until the early 1970s translations
Evidence
When the revised dissertation was published in 1973, the hopes and fears of the late 196os were still potent, the Vietnam War had two more years to run its course, and the New Left was not yet a spent force. The intellectual tradition that became known as Western Marxism was still described in an American anthology of 1972 as an “unknown dimension,”’ which might provide useful ideas for the struggles of the pres ent and future. Translations of its classical texts were only first becoming available at that time (Georg Lukacs’ History and Class Consciousness in 1971, for example, and Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment the following year), and there was a strong sense of intellectual treasure still to be excavated. Journals like New Left Review, Telos, and New German Critique tumbled over each other in their eagerness to present, explicate and apply ideas that promised to help subvert the status quo. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 10
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: Connects to the reception history of the Frankfurt School in the Anglophone world and the rise of New Left Review and Telos as gatekeepers of Western Marxism.
Related
- Western Marxism reached English readers only decades after its creation (similarity 0.92)
- The Frankfurt School outlived the 1970s Western Marxism revival that sank rival theorists (similarity 0.83)
- The Frankfurt School outlasted rival Western Marxist figures in influence. (similarity 0.81)
- The Frankfurt School’s scholarly moment ended but its reception lay ahead (similarity 0.81)
- The pre-1950 Frankfurt School’s dilemmas anticipated and fueled the postwar New Left (similarity 0.78)