Nation: The Revolution Never Came

Herbert Marcuse: 1898-1979

It is a worldly philosopher's dream: his long neglected works catch fire, illuminate his times and emblazon his name for posterity. It does not often come true, but it did for Herbert Marcuse. In the tumultuous 1960s his arcane and obscurely written books were suddenly discovered by student radicals in both America and Western Europe, and the white-maned, craggy-faced, cigar-puffing septuagenarian found himself a culture hero of the youth rebellion. A protesting student in Rome spoke for innumerable other rebels when he placed Marcuse in a holy trinity of revolutionaries: "We see Marx as the prophet, Marcuse as...