Walter Benjamin by Peter E Gordon

Walter Benjamin by Peter E Gordon

An accessible and authoritative biography of Walter Benjamin that guides the reader through the complexity of his intellectual legacy and the turbulence of his time

“A short, serene volume. . . . Gordon avoids treating his subject in allegorical terms, in part because Benjamin always resisted conscription into a story larger than his own.”—Anahid Nersessian, New Yorker

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acumen and capacious imagination, he developed a unique style of criticism—his friend Hannah Arendt called it pearl-diving—that sought out fragments of redemption in the ruins of bourgeois civilization.

Award-winning author Peter E. Gordon tells Benjamin’s story in a vivid and poetic style, inviting the reader to look beyond the image of Benjamin as a tragic figure of German-Jewish history and portraying him as a complex personality of unique and multifaceted gifts. Tracing Benjamin’s life from his Berlin childhood to his Parisian exile, through the romanticism of the youth movements and the conflicts over modernism and Marxism, Gordon brings Benjamin to life.

Peter E. Gordon teaches social theory and philosophy at Harvard University. His books include Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization and A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of Normativity. He lives in Cambridge, MA.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780300216868
ISBN 10	0300216866
Title	Walter Benjamin
Author	Peter E Gordon
Series	Jewish Lives
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Yale University Press
Year published	2026-02-24
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.