The Essential Marcuse

The Essential Marcuse provides an overview of Herbert Marcuse's political and philosophical writing over four decades, with excerpts from his major books as well as essays from various academic journals. The most influential radical philosopher of the 1960s, Marcuse's writings are noteworthy for their uncompromising opposition to both capitalism and communism. His words are as relevant to today's society as they were at the time they were written.

Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) was born in Berlin and educated at the universities of Berlin and Freiburg. He fled Germany in 1933 and arrived in the United States in 1934. Marcuse taught at Columbia, Harvard, Brandeis, and the University of California, San Diego, where he met Andrew Feenberg and William Leiss as graduate students. He is the author of numerous books, including One-Dimensional Man and Eros and Civilization.

Andrew Feenberg is a Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. Feenberg worked under Herbert Marcuse as a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego.

William Leiss, O.C., Ph.D., FRSC, has been a professor at seven Canadian universities. Leiss worked under Herbert Marcuse as graduate students at the University of California, San Diego.