This is the only available systematic critical overview of German aesthetics from 1750 to the present. The book begins with the work of Baumgarten and covers all the major writers on German aesthetics that follow: Kant, Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer and Adorno. It offers a clear and non-technical exposition of ideas, placing these in a wider philosophical context where necessary. Interest in this book extends far beyond the discipline of philosophy to those of literary studies, fine art and music.