Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man

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The memorable first sentence of Herbert Marcuse's 1964 masterpiece, One-Dimensional Man (Routledge), is rooted in its turbulent times: "Does not the threat of an atomic catastrophe which could wipe out the human race also serve to protect the very forces which perpetuate this danger?" One can be forgiven for suspecting that Marcuse's invocation of thermonuclear obliteration infuses his writing with the inbuilt obsolescence he decried in consumer products and pop culture. Now that the cold warns over, Marcuse's thinking might be seen to have gone the way of bomb shelters and "missile gaps".

It is a testament to his prescience, then, that One-Dimensional Man is now a more relevant critique of our technological society than ever. The atomic shadow may have largely passed, but Marcuse's portrait of a totalitarian post-industrial world, with its "comfortable, smooth, reasonable, democratic unfreedom", decidedly lives on. A rereading of his work is not only instructive to anyone who feels there …