Herbert Marcuse was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1898. He became a professor at the University of Frankfurt, later becoming part of the Frankfurt School (See: Background). He escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, spending a year in Switzerland before coming to the United States in 1934. He worked for the US government, analyzing the Nazi threat. He became a US citizen in 1940 and then a professor at multiple universities in the US. Marcuse was instrumental in supporting student-led protests at the University of California, San Diego, in the 1960s and mentored racial activist Angela Davis, who studied under him at Brandeis, University of Frankfurt, and UCSD. He died on July 29, 1979, at the age of 81.

His two most influential books are Eros and Civilization (1955) and One-Dimensional Man (1964). In these books, Marcuse develops his revisions of Marx in coordination with his engagement and development of Freudian psychoanalysis.

Marcuse insists that modern capitalism convinces people that they are free when they are actually enslaved to a system that very subtly and comfortably refuses radical protest. Marcuse is committed to both the liberation of classes of people who are marginalized—whether on the basis of poverty, race, or other demographics—and the liberation of the individual through engagement with revolutionary, dialectical thinking.