Gertrud Koch's book, accurately if at times awkwardly translated by Jeremy Gaines, is the only work of its kind available in English. It offers a comprehensive though idiosyncratic introduction to the life and major works of Siegfried Kracauer, an original and insufficiently appreciated thinker in his own right, as well as a significant influence on better known theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin (both of whom were his friends)--and a precursor to the social philosophies of French authors such as Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Michel de Certeau. Indeed, Kracauer can be considered the father of Cultural Studies as a discrete discipline, and his work combines sociology and Marxist philosophy with popular journalism to offer groundbreaking insights into the historical genealogy of the modern workplace, the cultural roots of fascism, and perhaps most importantly the social and aesthetic significance of film.



All of this is justification enough for a book-length discussion of his complex and heterogenous writings. Koch, a respected German scholar of Kracauer and his milieu, does a mostly excellent job of summarizing the highlights of Kracauer's career and analyzing his contributions to the vocabulary and methodology of Critical Theory. At times, however, it is unclear as to whether she is offering an introduction to Kracauer's work or an in-depth discussion for specialists, and she occasionally veers between overstating the obvious and weighing her argument down with arcane subtleties. For a specialist or aspiring-specialist audience, perhaps the most noticable weakness of this book is its overly apologetic tone, both in providing uniform attention to all his work--thereby diluting the strength of his best work by equating it with his lesser efforts--and in short-changing a candid discussion of Kracauer's ambiguous sexuality.



Nonetheless, as the only work of its kind this book makes a valuable contribution to the scholarship on Critical Theory and the intellectual legacies of Weimar Germany. It is encouraging that Koch offers such sustained and serious attention to Kracauer's fascinating body of work, and one can only hope that this book will stimulate other readers and scholars to continue the discussion that she initiates.

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