Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) is a remarkable figure even within the extraordinary diversity of 20th-century German intellectual culture. Beginning with studies of German Romanticism, Goethe, and Baroque theater, he then turned to the search for patterns in cultural development, seeking to begin with concrete, tangible phenomena of human life, often quite simple and ordinary. Chaplin's comedies, children's books, tabloid newspapers, old photographs, and Parisian arcades—all became fodder for his reflections on the structure of culture. His studies of literature—Baudelaire, Kafka, Proust, and Leskov—proved immeasurably broader than traditional literary studies. Walter Benjamin's restless nature brought him to Moscow in the winter of 1926-1927, a meeting that played a significant role in his fate.
This edition is supplemented for the first time by an article by Sergei Fokin, dedicated to the hidden contexts of 'Moscow Diary' and ways of reading it today.
3rd edition, stereotypical.