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Book Review: Adorno: A Political Biography

The cover photo on the dust jacket of this biography shows Theodor Adorno in a domestic setting wearing worn-in shoes and a solemn look. Revealingly this photograph is a self-portrait taken through a full-length mirror with the use of a tripod and an automated shutter switch (which Adorno has in his hand). The purpose of the photograph is unclear; it stands as a moment in which Adorno appears alone, isolated, a solitary ageing figure, which is where the story contained in the book finishes. The cyclical representation of Adorno’s life is not only represented in the photographic opening moment and the solitary isolated figure that is described in the final paragraphs of the book. It can also be found in the return to nature that Adorno makes in the final passages of his life. This return to the comfort of nature is detailed here by Jäger as a reflection of, or a return to, the source of inspiration of some of Adorno’s earliest writings. The cover photo is significant in many regards. Not only does it echo throughout the text through its suggestion and depiction of inevitability. It also offers a visual representation of the reflexive style of Adorno’s writings. If we turn to the text itself we are confronted by a towering piece of detailed and thoroughly researched writing. Jäger makes a number of carefully considered links between Adorno’s theories and his social, cultural, and theoretical context. The text could equally have been subtitled a sociological, or a theoretical, or a social, or a philosophical biography, as accounts of each of these can be found within its pages. These elements are all closely woven together in the detailed accounts given of Adorno’s life. The result is an intricately constructed map of Adorno’s context that is particularly revealing in the glimpses it offers the reader of the terror and oppression that influenced many of his writings. In terms of structure the text largely falls in chronological order, although the reader is often transported on short detours backwards where contextual support is