This book offers a radical new interpretation of Georg Lukács?s History and Class Consciousness, showing for the first time how the philosophical framework for his analysis of society was laid in the drafts of a philosophy of art that he planned but never completed before he converted to Marxism. Reading Lukács?s work through the so-called ?Heidelberg Aesthetics? reveals for the first time a range of unsuspected influences on his thought, such as Edmund Husserl, Emil Lask, and Alois Riegl; it also offers a theory of subjectivity within social relations that avoids many of the problems of earlier readings of his text. At a time when Lukács?s reputation is once more on the rise, this bold new reading helps revitalize his thought in ways that help it speak to contemporary concerns.