“An impressive biography: accurate, fluent, displaying thorough knowledge and independent judgement, this is the first book to do justice to Kracauer.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“Später avoids simple description and banal interpretations and surprises the reader with careful, considered judgements, thus demonstrating what a biographer should fundamentally be: a courageous historian.”
Thomas Meyer, Süddeutsche Zeitung"With his gorgeously written social biography of an allegedly marginal figure of Critical Theory, Siegfried Kracauer, historian Jörg Später delivers an epistemological perspective that allows the reader to grasp the world through its minutiae."
Dan Diner, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem "It is a refreshing sign of modesty that Jörg Später calls his study on the life and work of Siegfried Kracauer only a biography. What Später instead does in this masterfully written book is to reconstruct the intellectual trajectory of a thinker who, despite all personal and historical difficulties, was able to create by combining observational skills, sociological knowledge and philosophical profundity one of the most original oeuvres within the tradition of Critical Theory. Thanks to the author of this intellectual biography, Kracauer steps out of the long shadow of the Frankfurt School and becomes a critical theorist in his own right."
Axel Honneth, Columbia University
"Später’s book . . . will be the definitive biography of Kracauer for many years to come."
The Jewish Chronicle
“magnificent”
Jewish Currents
‘a very sound and well-constructed… life-story. And Kracauer's really was quite a fascinating life.’
The Complete Review