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lucasmiller's review
4.0
I feel an affinity with Walter Benjamin, but imagine that I would not get along with many people who are well versed in his writing.
Ratings are arbitrary for books like this, but this is certainly one of the better Introducing books I have read. Many of them will pick up a theme, or investigate their topic through some narrative device, but I think that the more straightforward biographical approach of this volume is more effective and more easily digestible.
I wanted to be a Oxford Very Short Introductions person, but believe I am becoming an Introducing Graphic Guides person. We know so little of our own lives while they happen.
My very first exposure to Walter Benjamin came from Kenneth Goldsmith discusses the Arcades Projects as an inspiration for the online avant garde database, Ubu. The liminal space between history, philosophy, art history, criticism, politics, arts, commonplace book, theological treatise, and intellectual autobiography strikes me as an artifact unique in the 20th century. This book reconfirmed that idea, though I'm not convinced it has prepared me to try and read much of it.
Ratings are arbitrary for books like this, but this is certainly one of the better Introducing books I have read. Many of them will pick up a theme, or investigate their topic through some narrative device, but I think that the more straightforward biographical approach of this volume is more effective and more easily digestible.
I wanted to be a Oxford Very Short Introductions person, but believe I am becoming an Introducing Graphic Guides person. We know so little of our own lives while they happen.
My very first exposure to Walter Benjamin came from Kenneth Goldsmith discusses the Arcades Projects as an inspiration for the online avant garde database, Ubu. The liminal space between history, philosophy, art history, criticism, politics, arts, commonplace book, theological treatise, and intellectual autobiography strikes me as an artifact unique in the 20th century. This book reconfirmed that idea, though I'm not convinced it has prepared me to try and read much of it.
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