In this contribution to the 100th issue of Thesis Eleven I would like to address the tradition of critical theory with which the journal has been closely associated. A distinctive feature of Thesis Eleven has been a concern with the critical analysis of the present as well as a concern with the critical appraisal of history. This has been refl ected in a particular kind of historical sociology, which has been developed by one of the journal’s prominent editors, Johann Arnason, under the title of civilizational analysis. The early work of Arnason was fi rmly rooted in the tradition of critical theory and more generally western Marxism, though the author has been heavily infl uenced by Weber, Castoriadis, and Merleau-Ponty. His later work, some of it published in Thesis Eleven, has been concerned with what he terms civilizational analysis and the cultural dimension of state formation in comparative perspective.