Enter the "Improbable Guru" of the 1960s
The term improbable guru was coined by Fortune magazine and repeated by the intellectual historian Paul Breines to describe his surprisingly famous and influential teacher, the philosopher, sociologist, and radical political thinker Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979). addition to Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and other "Frankfurt School" colleagues, Marcuse fled Nazi repression in his native Germany and came to the United States in 1934. After an initial affiliation with Columbia University and the University Russian Research Center, Marcuse held major academic positions first at Brandeis University and then at the University of California at San Diego, where, despite the dedicated efforts of then Governor Ronald Reagan to remove him, he stayed until his retirement