The editor opens by establishing Dialectic of Enlightenment as the Frankfurt School’s most influential and theoretically concentrated work. Written in exile by Horkheimer and Adorno between 1939 and 1944, its declared aim was to account for why humanity, rather than advancing toward a genuinely humane condition, was descending into a new phase of barbarism. The book’s loose structure—five largely disconnected chapters plus shorter notes—belies its ambition: by connecting archaic myth to modern political terror, it argues that German National Socialism was not an aberration of Western history but a product of its deepest logic. The core paradox driving the argument is that myth and enlightenment are not opposites but mutually constitutive. Reason, from its origins, has been bound up with domination of nature, inner life, and society, and this entanglement culminates in fascism and the culture industry.

Section 1: Authorship

Despite the book’s dense, allusive character delaying its wide reception, it eventually became one of Critical Theory’s most discussed texts. Horkheimer and Adorno consistently maintained joint responsibility for every sentence. However, evidence from posthumous papers and oral reports allows a more granular picture.