“This fascinating book of superb scholarship is especially lively in its ability to give a sense of the times, offering contemporary younger readers the occasion to see what was once at stake in a theory that has so often of late focused on internal problems and debates. Though the book is ‘about’ theory, it is history, in the best sense of combining conceptual delicacy (and accuracy) with the historical context needed to provide the dimensionality required to grant concepts their full significance. It is important and timely in the post-Cold War retreat of politics to have a historical assessment of how those politics, as well as certain stances inherited from the French Revolution and the advent of democracy, were the original context around what we call ‘theory’ today.” —Juliet Flower MacCannell, University of California, Irvine