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aria_izikdzurko's review
4.0
The first chapters I felt I missed the value because I haven’t read much of Baudelaire or Proust, but the last chapters on the modern transformation of art were quite interesting.
cattytrona's review against another edition
3.0
Benjamin is always insightful, but this was hard work. I think I would recommend (almost?) all the essays in here, including the introduction, but I can’t honestly recommend the book as one single experience. Reading an essay on its own, finding the parts that resonate, and then holding those ‘quotations’ close feels like the way to read Benjamin for me.
motifenjoyer's review
4.0
"The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight... One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm. The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are "still" possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge-unless it is. the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable."