The "dialectic of the Enlightenment" expresses the awareness of the dense complexity of the processes that gave rise to Modernity and that are now about to overcome it without bringing forward their moments of truth. And it means, in addition, that those processes and the situation to which they have led are crossed by a fundamental ambiguity: that they can realize the Enlightenment, but also liquidate it. Which happens whenever that dialectic is ignored.

This is the theme that is elucidated in the debate that marked the end of the century: the debate on the transition from Modernity to the so-called postmodernity. A controversy in which the values ​​of the Enlightenment that shape the identity of our culture are at stake.

Preserving these values, "saving the Enlightenment", was precisely the interest that moved Horkheimer and Adorno to write Dialectic of the Enlightenment, a key work to situate oneself lucidly in this hour of transit. The present edition, revised and updated, offers the Spanish-speaking public a translation of the complete work, with its three textual variants, as well as an introductory study of it. He wants to contribute to this demand for lucidity.