This introduction outlines the importance that Hans-Georg Backhaus’s transcript of Adorno’s 1962 seminar on ‘Marx and the Basic Concepts of Sociological Theory’ has for shedding light on the relationship between Adorno’s critical theory and the critique of political economy. Part  I  signals the importance of the seminar by assaying the Anglophone scholarship on Adorno. Part  II  contextualises the seminar in the development of his thought. Parts  III  and  IV  focus on what the transcript tells us about Adorno’s interpretation of Marx and the importance this interpretation held for Adorno’s critical social theory. Part  V  points to the influence this interpretation of the critique of political economy had on the formation of the New German Reading of Marx.