本书是瓦尔特·本雅明德“拱廊研究计划”的几篇完成稿，德国著名思想家、文艺理论家本雅明受阿拉贡小说的启发，决定通过对大城市异化景观——巴黎拱廊的研究，来展现19世界“资本文化盛事”的风景。在这几篇完成稿中，他用自己独特的叙述风格对波德莱尔的诗歌进行了诠释，同时又敏锐地发现了拱廊在空间上给人类社会生活带来地新变化。通过本书，你可以了解到19世纪资本主义发展进程中，人与自身异化所做的斗争。

Benjamin's famous "Work of Art" essay sets out his boldest thoughts - on media and on culture in general - in their most realized form, while retaining an edge that gets under the skin of everyone who reads it. In this essay the visual arts of the machine age morph into literature and theory and then back again to images, gestures, and thought.This essay, however, is only the beginning of a vast collection of writings that the editors have assembled to demonstrate what was revolutionary about Benjamin's explorations on media. Long before Marshall McLuhan, Benjamin saw that the way a bullet rips into its victim is exactly the way a movie or pop song lodges in the soul.This book contains the second, and most daring, of the four versions of the "Work of Art" essay - the one that addresses the utopian developments of the modern media. The collection tracks Benjamin's observations on the media as they are revealed in essays on the production and reception of art; on film, radio, and photography; and on the modern transformations of literature and painting. The volume contains some of Benjamin's best-known work alongside fascinating, little-known essays - some appearing for the first time in English. In the context of his passionate engagement with questions of aesthetics, the scope of Benjamin's media theory can be fully appreciated.

Walter Benjamin was one of the most original cultural critics of the twentieth century. Illuminations includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and on Brecht's Epic Theater. Also included are his penetrating study "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and Benjamin's theses on the philosophy of history. Hannah Arendt selected the essays for this volume and introduces them with a classic essay about Benjamin's life in dark times. Also included is a new preface by Leon Wieseltier that explores Benjamin's continued relevance for our times.