Walter Benjamin: the pearl diver

By:

Gordon, Peter E

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: London Yale University Press 2026Description: 203pISBN:

9780300216868

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

838.912 GOR

Summary: An accessible and authoritative biography of Walter Benjamin that guides the reader through the complexity of his intellectual legacy and the turbulence of his time Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acumen and capacious imagination, he developed a unique style of criticism—his friend Hannah Arendt called it pearl-diving—that sought out fragments of redemption in the ruins of bourgeois civilization. Award-winning author Peter E. Gordon tells Benjamin’s story in a vivid and poetic style, inviting the reader to look beyond the image of Benjamin as a tragic figure of German-Jewish history and portraying him as a complex personality of unique and multifaceted gifts. Tracing Benjamin’s life from his Berlin childhood to his Parisian exile, through the romanticism of the youth movements and the conflicts over modernism and Marxism, Gordon compellingly brings Benjamin to life.

List(s) this item appears in: New Arrivals September, 2026

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Books	Gandhi Smriti Library	838.912 GOR (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		186359

Total holds: 0

An accessible and authoritative biography of Walter Benjamin that guides the reader through the complexity of his intellectual legacy and the turbulence of his time
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acumen and capacious imagination, he developed a unique style of criticism—his friend Hannah Arendt called it pearl-diving—that sought out fragments of redemption in the ruins of bourgeois civilization.
Award-winning author Peter E. Gordon tells Benjamin’s story in a vivid and poetic style, inviting the reader to look beyond the image of Benjamin as a tragic figure of German-Jewish history and portraying him as a complex personality of unique and multifaceted gifts. Tracing Benjamin’s life from his Berlin childhood to his Parisian exile, through the romanticism of the youth movements and the conflicts over modernism and Marxism, Gordon compellingly brings Benjamin to life.

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