Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukács to Habermas

While this book seems to be about a rather obscure intellectual concept, in fact it is a book about the european intellectuals in the 20th cent. Jay covers about a dozen marxist, or leftist, philosophers, and clearly explains each author's ideas and places them in an historical context where he uncovers their background and relationships with other thinkers. Its focus is mainly Germany and France with a little Italy, but it gives a real sense of the issues of that period. After reading this book you will actually understand existentism and structuralism.