The Cambridge Companion to Adorno

At the end of 1947, Dialectic of Enlightenment was published by Querido Verlag. Written with Max Horkheimer, the book was the most important product of Theodor Adorno's exile in the United States. While its significance for Adorno's subsequent work has long been recognized, less attention has been paid to its relationship to two other works, both of which appeared at about the same time: Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus and Arnold Schoenberg's Survivor from Warsaw. The three share a good deal more than their common birthdate. Brought together, they form a triptych in which each offers a different perspective on the themes addressed by the others. Produced by refugees from Hitler's Germany, all three were responses to the diabolical force that had driven their creators into exile; in differing ways, all three explored the intertwining of enlightenment and myth, reason and barbarism, civilization and cruelty; and all three were produced by men who knew one another and lived within a few miles of each another, just outside Hollywood.