In this series of accessible lectures, Fredric Jameson explores German philosophy and critical theory as it developed in the wake of World War II. Focussing in on key thinkers such as Horkheimer, Adorno, Heidegger, Habermas, Marcuse, Beuys, Enzensberger, Kluge, Sloterdijk and RosaJameson weaves close readings of texts with anecdotes to craft a story about the uses of theory from the postwar division of Germany to its reunification at the end of the Cold War. Ranging from the legacy of Nazism to the formation of the EU, After Year Zero is an indispensable account of the German critical tradition's past and future, as seen by the "most significant Marxist thinker in American culture."