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Walter Benjamin

The Pearl Diver
By Peter E. Gordon
Series: Jewish Lives
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Brief Description
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. Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary... Read More
Format: Hardback
$4099
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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.

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 compellingly brings Benjamin to life.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780300216868

Publisher: Yale University Press

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 14 April 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: Yale University Press

Illustration: 8 b-w illus.

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 146.0mm

Height: 210.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 224

Collections

Biography & Memoir Education & Reference Non-Fiction Peter E. Gordon Philosophy & Psychology Philosophy & Stoicism Political Biographies Politics & Current Affairs Series: Jewish Lives

About the Author

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.

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