Book excerpt: This is an examination of modern culture and its legacy which argues that the key elements of a genuine cultural tradition are not just to be found in the conveniently closed and neatly labelled ages of the past, but also in the open and experimental cultural process of our time. One of the most compelling aspects of this work is a contemporary analysis of the rise of Nazism. It probes its bogus roots in German history and mythology at the very moment when the ideologies of Blood and Soil and the Blond Beast were actually taking hold of the German people. An associate of Lukacs, Benjamin, Adorno and Brecht, the author wrote The Principle of Hope.