Walter Benjamin � philosopher, essayist, literary and cultural theorist � was one of the most original writers and thinkers of the twentieth century. This new selection brings together Benjamin�s major works, including �One-Way Street�, his dreamlike, aphoristic observations of urban life in Weimar Germany; �Unpacking My Library�, a delightful meditation on book-collecting; the confessional �Hashish in Marseille�; and �The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction�, his seminal essay on how technology changes the way we appreciate art. Also including writings on subjects ranging from Proust to Kafka, violence to surrealism, this is the essential volume on one of the most prescient critical voices of the modern age. Contains: 'Unpacking My Library'; 'One-Way Street'; 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction�; 'Brief History of Photography'; 'Hashish in Marseille'; 'On the Critique of Violence'; 'The Job of the Translator'; 'Surrealism'; 'Franz Kafka' and 'Picturing Proust'.

"The philosopher Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996) has, in the quarter-century since his death, become a modern classic in his native Germany, making him one of the most important philosophers of the post-war period. This collection offers an invaluable guide, containing both his most important philosophical essays as well as selections of his non-academic writings that appeared in newspapers and cultural magazines. The topics covered include modernity and secularization, the philosophy of history, the history of science and technology, language philosophy and rhetoricity, aesthetics and literary theory, philosophical anthropology, theology, and mythical thought"--