Eros and Civilization

Hailed as the 'Guru of the New Left' and a leading figure of 1960s counterculture and liberation movements, the philosopher Herbert Marcuse is amongst the most renowned and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. Eros and Civilization is one of his best-known books and brought him international fame. Taking his cue from Freud's view that repression of the instincts is a defining characteristic of the human mind, Marcuse fuses Freud's insight with Marx's theories of alienation and oppression. He argues that rather than our instincts turned in on themselves, it is modern capitalism itself that is preventing us from reaching the freedom we can find in a non-repressive society. A sweeping indictment of…