Critical Models presents Adorno at his most philosophically stunning-'Progress'and 'On Subject and Object'are among his finest essays-and at his topical best. Even an Adorno radio talk can be critically chilling. This volume is the ideal entry into the expanse of Adorno's thought. -- J. M. Bernstein, New School University Contrary to the caricature of Adorno as an aloof mandarin unwilling to descend into the public sphere, these essays, elegantly translated and abundantly annotated by Henry Pickford, reveal the range and power of his contributions to the fragile German democracy he helped build after returning from exile. Without sacrificing his critical rigor, Adorno shows that even the most negative of dialectics can address practical problems and provide suggestive answers. -- Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley

Critical Models combines into a single volume two of Adorno's most important postwar works - Interventions: Nine Critical Models (1963) and Catchwords: Critical Models II (1969). Written after his return to Germany in 1949, the articles, essays, and radio talks included in this volume speak to the pressing political, cultural, and philosophical concerns of the postwar era. The pieces in Critical Models reflect the intellectually provocative as well as the practical Adorno as he addresses such issues as the dangers of ideological conformity, the fragility of democracy, educational reform, the influence of television and radio, and the aftermath of fascism. This new edition includes an introduction by Lydia Goehr, a renowned scholar in philosophy, aesthetic theory, and musicology. Goehr illuminates Adorno's ideas as well as the intellectual, historical, and critical contexts that shaped his postwar thinking.