Marcuse, Herbert (1898–1979)

HERBERT MARCUSE was a German-born social philosopher and political activist. One of the founders of a school of critical social thought in the first half of the 20th century, he became famous during the tumultuous period of the 1960s and early 1970s as the “father” of the New Left movement, inspiring student radicals and other groups to advocate revolutionary social change. The aging professor (he was 70 years old in [Page 299]1968, at the height of the protest era) became the unlikely intellectual guru to number of young radical groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a group that brought about many changes in the socially turbulent 1960s. To the disdain of the conservative establishment, he introduced his young followers to the ...