This volume provides theoretical construction to the extraordinary events that resulted in the collapse of communism worldwide. The authors attribute a great deal of the problems of totalitarianism to its blind acceptance of a Marxist philosophy of practice. With the failure of communist practice, the collapse of the Marxist paradigm was quick to follow. At its roots, this volume is a critique of the idea that we can have "scientific knowledge" of the social and political future.

Grandeur and Twilight of Radical Universalism provides a theoretical construction to the extraordinary events of the past several years in Europe and the Soviet Union, and China. These masterful essays attribute much of the problem of totalitarianism to its blind acceptance of a Marxist philosophy of practice. With the failure of communist practice, the collapse of the Marxian paradigm was quick to follow.At its roots this volume is a critique of the idea that we can have "scientific knowledge" of the social and political future. Totalitarian Marxism combined statements of history and claims of omniscience. Free choice was surrendered to history, and when the predicted outcomes fail to materialize, when communism came closer to being buried than capitalism, and western ideals of democracy proved far more compelling than inherited doctrines of authoritarianism, the outcome proved monumental and disastrous.The authors position themselves as evolving from critical Marxism to post-Marxism, and then post modernism. By this, they mean a modest view of life, one that moves beyond radical universalism and grand narrative, into a realization of individualism and equity concerns are central to the end of the twentieth century. The volume proceeds historically: from studies of the classic Marxian legacy; to the early twentieth century efforts of Lukacs, Weber and Adorno; proceeding to the disintegration of the Marxian paradigm in both its pure and revisionist forms. It ends with a study of options posed by this paradigmatic collapse - to consideration of the status of postmodernity and the choices between pure relativism and a theological fundamentalism. ,This is a work of absolute importance for political philosophy, the sociology of knowledge, and the history of ideas. In raising recent events to a theoretically meaningful framework, it represents a refreshing as well as remarkable step toward understanding Revolutions from 1789 to 1989.

Thirty-five years ago Joseph Gabel pub­lished a modern masterpiece, which in 1975 appeared in English as False Con­sciousness: An Essay on Reificalion . Combining his special knowledge of existential psychiatry, axiology, Marx­ism, and political history, Gabel pro­posed the utterly novel idea that victims of serious mental disturbances (espe­cially paranoia and schizophrenia) re­produce those distorted thought pat­terns commonly associated with ideo­logical beliefs at the collective level. Such beliefs initially had been laid bare in the 1920s by Gabel's intellectual progenitors, Karl Mannheim and George Lukacs. Gabel's remarkable innovation was to transfer the private crisis of mental collapse into the analytic frame­work previously reserved for ideological critique, making him an expert on what was later called "the micro-macro prob­lem." Ideologies and the Corruption of Thought includes Gabel's essays over the last 40 years, characteristically treating micro and macro theoretical matters simultaneously. Originally writ­ten in French and German, they have been recast in idiomatic English and bibliographically updated. Using a unique mode and vocabulary of analy­sis, Gabel offers theoretical investiga­tions of McCarthyism and Stalinism (original and more recent types), as well as Althusser, Orwell, and Jonathan Swift in his capacity as a psychiatric theorist. He also explores anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, and a fascinating case study of a paranoid who regarded him­self as the pope. In addition this volume includes a range of general commentar­ies on ideological "thought," utopianism, and false consciousness. This rich feast of social and political analysis and theory illuminates a range of contemporary concerns—racism, Utopian fantasy, ethnocentrism, anti-Semitism, the interplay of social struc­ture and mental illness, and ideological transformations of social life—which only Gabel's unique mixture of the clini­cal and the political could achieve. It will be studied with interest by all theo­rists and politically alert readers in the social sciences, philosophy, and related fields of study.

Critical Theories and the Budapest School brings together new perspectives on the Budapest School in the context of contemporary developments in critical theory. Engaging with the work of the prominent group of figures associated with Georg Lukács, this book sheds new light on the unique and nuanced critiques of modernity offered by this school, informed as its members’ insights have been by first-hand experiences of Nazism, Soviet-type societies, and the liberal-democratic West. With studies of topics central to contemporary critical theory, such as the political and historical consciousness of modernity, the importance of bio-politics, the complexity of the human condition, and the relevance of comedy and friendship to developing critical perspectives, the authors draw on the works of Ágnes Heller, Maria Márkus, György Márkus, and Ferenc Fehér, demonstrating their enduring relevance to critical theory today and the ways in which these philosophers can inform new perspectives on culture and politics. An innovative reassessment of the Budapest School and the importance of its legacy, this book opens a much-needed and neglected dialogue with other schools and traditions of critical theorizing that will be of interest to scholars of sociology, philosophy, and social theory.

The varying interests of competing minority groups often part company with regard to how to achieve an equitable community. Worlds of Difference rethinks the traditional interpretation of the principle of educational equity in light of this difficulty. Theorists and educational practitioners influenced by many disparate schools of thought reflect upon the possibilities of a "curriculum of difference" in relation to questions of language, culture, and media at the forefront of global education issues today. Collectively, the authors argue that education in theory and practice must reawaken an ethical consciousness that affirms the negative values of difference, but still recognizes the uniqueness and particularity of each group.

The Revival of Political Imagination offers a unique examination of the methodological aspects of utopia. Discussing utopia as a tool for social criticism, method and imaginative spaces - rather than in terms of its content - this volume analyses the function of utopias, to develop utopias as methodology and to show how instrumental utopian modes of thought can be in such diverse fields such as education, labour, and housing. Including discussions of traditional and contemporary utopias, as well as various forms of expression of utopian hope, from literature to social science and cultural practices, The Revival of Political Imagination is both analytical and practical in its elucidation of how political theory can function to foster our imaginative skills.

Karl-Otto Apel is one of the most important German philosophers of the 20th century, and is finally coming to be recognized as such. However, his work is still poorly understood and inadequately treated throughout most of the world. In The Adventures of Transcendental Philosophy, critical theory scholar Eduardo Mendieta examines the philosophical origins of discourse ethics through the prism of Apel's thought. Mendieta finds that Apel fundamentally transformed German philosophy, which had become stagnant in the years before World War II, and deeply influenced later thinkers such as JYrgen Habermas. Apel's turn toward pragmatism and analytic philosophy helped him bring the concept of a linguistic paradigm shift to Germany.