The Jews and Europe

Max Horkheimer

1939

That is how it is with the Jews. They shed many a tear for the past. That they fared better under liberalism does not guarantee the justice of the latter. Even the French Revolution, which helped the bourgeois economy to victory and gave the Jews equality, was more ambivalent than they dare imagine today. Not ideas but utility are decisive for the…

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Creator Bio

Max Horkheimer

1895–1973

Philosopher and sociologist Max Horkheimer was born in Stuttgart, Germany, and raised in an Orthodox family. After World War I, he studied at the University of Frankfurt, from which he received his doctorate in 1922. Horkheimer was the director of the Institute of Social Research and professor of social philosophy at the university from 1930 to 1933 and again from 1949 to 1958, after having led the institute in exile when it was relocated to New York during World War II. He is best known for his work in critical theory and as a leader of the Frankfurt School. His most important work, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), was written in collaboration with Theodor Adorno.

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