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Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life Paperback – March 31, 2020

by Theodor Adorno (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 164 ratings
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"A volume of Adorno is equivalent to a whole shelf of books on literature." —Susan Sontag

A reflection on everyday existence in the ‘sphere of consumption of late Capitalism’, this work is Adorno’s literary and philosophical masterpiece. Built from aphorisms and reflections, he shifts in register from personal experience to the most general theoretical problems.
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  1. Print length
    272 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Verso
  4. Publication date
    March 31, 2020
  5. Dimensions
    5.05 x 0.65 x 7.85 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1788738535
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1788738538
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A volume of Adorno is equivalent to a whole shelf of books on literature.”—Susan Sontag

“The most peculiarly representative of Adorno’s work.”—Cambridge Review

“The best thoughts of a noble and invigorating mind.”—The Observer [UK]

“A staggering variety of topics is covered, moving in each section from the most intimate personal experiences to the most general theoretical problems.”—Radical Philosophy

“A primary intellectual document of this age.”—Sunday Times [London]

“A classic of twentieth-century thought ... whose translation is the best by far of any work of critical theory.”—Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Theodor Adorno was director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt from 1956 until his death in 1969. His works include In Search of Wagner; Aesthetic Theory; Negative Dialectics; and (with Max Horkheimer) Dialectic of Enlightenment and Towards a New Manifesto.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Verso (March 31, 2020)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1788738535
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1788738538
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.05 x 0.65 x 7.85 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 164 ratings

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Theodor W. Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno

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Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) was the leading figure of the Frankfurt school of critical theory. He authored more than twenty volumes, including "Negative Dialectics" (1982), "Kierkegaard" (Minnesota, 1989), "Dialectic of Enlightenment" (1975) with Max Horkheimer, and "Aesthetic Theory" (Minnesota, 1997).

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4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
164 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Bill
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Greatest Minds of our Time
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2019
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Adorno is dense reading, be prepared for that. Definitely not intro-level socio-economic theory. I took an entire class on Adorno in grad school and it still takes a lot of patience for me to fully absorb some of his writing- even with his superb economy of words, there is a lot to comprehend. That said, Minima Moralia may be a good intro to Adorno, as the book is more a collection of essays. I found it to be very eye-opening to the mechanics of western society, although he is the definition of a pessimist. I think of Adorno's work not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end towards higher enlightenment.
24 people found this helpful
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Jeremy Brunger
5.0 out of 5 stars This volume contains some of Adorno's most beautiful prose and
Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2015
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Minima Moralia is a modern take on Aristotle's Magna Moralia for a post-fascist world. This volume contains some of Adorno's most beautiful prose and, contrary to what some have said, I don't think his writing in translation in difficult. Compared to other German philosophers in the tradition he was working in, his prose style and allusions are crystal clear, and are dense in the aphoristic style of nineteenth century German philosophy. Some minimal background is needed to understand where he is coming from, but to a basically educated reader, Minima Moralia should come across as a brief, interesting read on the downfallen tendency of industrial society in the depressive vein. I don't like Verso's edition of this or other works--the sandpaper background is ugly, and doesn't even have a sandpaper texture--but that is no fault of Adorno or his translator. Necessary reading--a desert island book.
23 people found this helpful
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Denver Dilettante
5.0 out of 5 stars Adorno Unadorned
Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2019
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Not that I have a pile of Adorno books to compare it to, but this seems like a great introduction to the man's thinking about a great variety of aesthetic/political/philosophical/etc. thoughts, each expressed in just a page or two. Adorno is legendarily dense, but his sentences are often short and I'd almost say he tends towards transparency more than opacity, but I might just be dense myself. Hard to say. Glad I bought this book!
12 people found this helpful
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Donald E. Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars Adorno's "Minima Moralia"
Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2012
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For a long time, I'd wanted to read "Minima Moralia." I knew it would be a daunting task. And, it was.
But, it was worth the time and the increased folds in my brow. I came into contact with one of the world's
great minds and critical thinkers. His words expanded both my world view and my inner view.
It's best read in small, incremental doses. That's the way it is written. It's not pleasure reading. It's
like reading for a college exam on a multitude of esoteric subjects. But, it's time well-spent.
18 people found this helpful
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Nina Parris
4.0 out of 5 stars I was glad to see this
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2016
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I was glad to see this listed
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Robert Bradley
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2017
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Good read
One person found this helpful
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Douglas M. Jones Jr.
5.0 out of 5 stars great book to keep with you like a bible
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2014
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oh i love this book and carry it everywhere
4 people found this helpful
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Phil Myers
3.0 out of 5 stars a damp, dark mine of of thought, with a few sparkling gems
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2005
Adorno is a sort of Nabokov of the armchair left: elitist, haughty, immaculately cultured, cynical and despairing, and capable of penetrating aphorisms and sparkling metaphors.

This collection of brief meditations on life and culture under late capitalism is maddening, provocative, illuminating, opaque, invigorating, and dour-- and often all of these on the same page.

Adorno is a writer capable of keen insights and exquisite turns of phrase, and the book contains a half dozen aphorisms that will stay with me. But reading Adorno fruitfully requires a lot of prereading: references to Hegel, Marx, Freud, Nietzche, Goethe and lesser figures of German philosophy and literature are tossed around with little hand-holding. In the end, his arcane cultural references and dour, despairing worldview cast doubts in my mind whether his books are worth the trouble.

His insights into the more subtle mechanisms of domination and comformity that pervade our society are important, but are rendered with greater clarity by writers such as Gramsci, Reich, P. Goodman, Debord, Chomsky, Marcuse, and Postman, writers who align themselves more closely with social struggles to resist these forms of oppression and thus have a more measured, hopeful view of the possibilities for reconstituting society along humane lines.

Ultimately, Adorno offers no way out of the morass, only criticism of those who seek it. His outlook of despair and non-involvement serves only to justify his elitist, impotent musings on esthetics and philosophy, and offers little instruction for resistance. Perhaps this is why his writings are so avidly championed in graduate programs in the humanities. His followers would do well to take heed of the warning Adorno himself ran afoul of:

"He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest." (MM 6)
32 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

BasmatiBandit
5.0 out of 5 stars Sharp, critical, and timeless - a must for all bookshelves.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2016
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Critical, and as relevant today as ever. Incredibly difficult to read at times, and frustrating for many English readers who are more acquainted with analytical philosophical works, but nonetheless highly worth the energy required to read and understand this fantastic work. One can only stipulate what he would have written should he have been writing in our current economic climate.
2 people found this helpful
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FrizzText - Didi van Frits
5.0 out of 5 stars enter an inspiring galaxy of ideas ...
Reviewed in Germany on August 8, 2005
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Adorno, at first grown up upper-class-protected, became acquainted with the horror only outside the family (his mother was a classical musician). Outside: on the school-yards, pursued and pushed by his peer group, because he always was teacher's darling. Outside: being a Jew walking on Nazi-streets of a pre-Hitler Germany with subtle racial discrimination. They soon would build Auschwitz. The same pattern, which at first as the contempt of mediocre school-gangs came into much too close contact to Adorno, secondly reached more painful intensity in the shape of the ideological constructions and daily realities of the National Socialism in the Third Reich. Though no one had a presentiment of the coming Holocaust, Adorno told, that the exploding of inhumanity did not astound him, after all that he had to suffer in the years before. Adorno fled to the U.S. for political reasons and because his father had Jewish roots. He worked in New York in the "Institute for Social Research". After exile (in the 1950s) Adorno returned to Frankfurt. He soon became a hero of the student revolts of 1968, but unfortunately students prefered a style of discussion and acting (Adorno's lectures were disrupted by bare breast girls), - a style of discussion and acting, which the (latent conservative) upper-class child Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (called "Teddy" by the students) disliked in the beginning, in the middle and at the end of his life. His literary and philosophical masterpiece MINIMA MORALIA however is a testament of a razor-sharp philosophical mind, using an élitist, brilliantly aphoristic language. He continually followed the principle, that the only method to write nowadays is an essayistic, non-systematic, code word analyzing method, considering the fact, that big mega-philosophies (fascism, marxism ...) always tumble down after a while or seep silently, trickle away by the working process of dialectic thinkers. Since the attack against the World Trade Center in New York the understanding grows, that living in bondage with a false philosophy or a fundamentalist religion or an impudence nation (sometimes difficult to decide) nearly inevitably leads into a catastrophe. It is a maybe confusing but easily remembered coincidence, that Adorno's birthday is on a "September Eleven" (9/11/1903), duplicating the hint at the warning that ideological instigation gives rise to an escalation of terrible disasters. Like a Noam Chomsky or a grandchild of Nietzsche, Marx and Kierkegaard this German philosopher, co-founder of the so-called "Frankfurter Schule", provides with ample food for thought with his dense, challenging prose. But on the other hand he very lowly uses language as a poet, describing daily life and it's false consciousness: leading the view to Proust or Sigmund Freud, to "Golden Gate" or "Tough Babies", to cats or mammoths, to marriage and divorce, to "L 'inutile beauté" or "Wishful Thinking", to "Il servo padrone" and "They, the people": if you decide to read Adorno, you will forget the present world of violence and you will enter an inspiring galaxy of ideas. The modesty of Adorno's working method, trying to convince linguistically only by small artful steps, this could be a comfort-rich meditation assistance for those, who live in rough political and urban scenes ...
One person found this helpful
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M.C Reidy
5.0 out of 5 stars Cultural Assassin
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 30, 2018
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Adorno: Injecting perversion into western culture...
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peter515018
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 18, 2016
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Good service - excellent
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Peter
4.0 out of 5 stars Reflections on the Commodification of Culture
Reviewed in Canada on January 3, 2022
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Seventy years later, only the examples & intensity of commodification of all human relations have changed, and not for the better.
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