born July 19, 1898, Berlin
died July 29, 1979, Starnberg, Ger.
German-U.S. political philosopher.
A member of the Frankfurt school , he fled Germany after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. After working in U.S. intelligence in World War II, he taught at several universities, principally Brandeis University (195465) and the University of California at San Diego (196576). In his best known and most influential work, One-Dimensional Man (1964), Marcuse argued that society under advanced capitalism is unfree and repressive and that modern man has become intellectually and spiritually complacent through his psychological dependence on the blandishments of consumer society, a phenomenon he termed "repressive desublimation." He was also hostile to the Soviet system. His works were popular among student leftists, especially after the 1968 student rebellions at Columbia University and the Sorbonne. His other writings include Eros and Civilization (1955) and Counterrevolution and Revolt (1972).