This book provides a thematic account of the changing political philosophy of critical theorists from Adorno to Habermas and Honneth. In addition to teasing out unexplored elements of political thought from the writings of important Frankfurt School intellectuals and their successors, the book seeks to establish the relevance of this tradition for contemporary political theory. Readers are offered an inside perspective, developed out of primary texts including some hitherto unused sources, which is combined with the outside perspective of non-Frankfurt School traditions such as cultural sociology. Heins presents a fresh reading of Critical Theory in ways that remind us both of what this theory is and what it can be.