"Max Horkheimer (1895-1973) was a leading figure in The Frankfurt School, a renowned body of philosophers and social theorists, including Adorno and Marcuse, who examined critically the changes in and development of capitalist society. Much of what has become known as the New Left can be traced back to Horkheimer, his social philosophy and his analysis of contemporary culture." "First published in 1947 Eclipse of Reason is the most lucid and fundamental statement of the Critical Theory put forward by the (...) Frankfurt School, surveying and demonstrating the gradual ascendancy of Reason in Western philosophy, its eventual total application to all spheres of life, and what he considers its present reified domination. It acts as a companion to the classic work that Horkheimer wrote with Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

In Part One Leiss traces the idea of the domination of nature from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century.