Walter Benjamin is one of the most characteristic and unique figures of the interwar period. His work, ranging from literary theory to philosophy and cultural criticism, reflects the major theoretical and political conflicts of the time. In the period 1934-1940, from which the essays collected in this volume originate, the conflict with National Socialism and its intellectual derivatives dominates. Exiled in Paris, Benjamin will engage in a peculiar synthesis of the traditions of Jewish mysticism, German romanticism, Marxism, neo-Kantianism, and critical theory. However, the unity of his work does not reduce to any of these poles, no matter how much one "seeks the butterfly in the net on which it casts its shadow as it flutters about".
This volume collects many of the most important texts from the last period of his life: essays on Kafka, Baudelaire, and French writers, Nikolai Leskov, poetry and the epic theater of Brecht, Eduard Fuchs, painting and photography, sociolinguistics, the milestone essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," his views on the concept of History, and more.