Fin de Siècle Socialism, originally published in 1988, demonstrates the lively potential for cultural criticism in intellectual history. Martin Jay discusses such controversies as the Habermas-Gadamer debate and the deconstructionist challenge to synoptic analysis. This book should be of interest to students and teachers of modern European history, political and social theory.

1. Fin-de-siècle Socialism 2. Should Intellectual History Take a Linguistic List? Reflections of the Habermas-Gadamer Debate 3. Hierarchy and the Humanities: The Radical Implications of a Conservative Ideal 4. Two Cheers for Paraphrase: The Confessions of a Synoptic Intellectual Historian 5. Vico and Western Marxism 6. Mass Culture and Aesthetic Redemption: The Debate Between Max Horkheimer and Siegfried Kracauer 7. For Gouldner; Reflections on an Outlaw Marxist 8. Against Fragmentation Against Itself: Contradictions and Anomalies in the Development of Gouldner's Theory 9. Habermas and Modernism 10. Habermas and Postmodernism 11. Blumenberg and Modernism: A Reflection on The Legitimacy of the Modern Age 12. Concluding Unhistorical Postscript