Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver by Peter E. Gordon
(Yale University Press)
February 24, 2026
GREATLY UNDERAPPRECIATED during his lifetime, Walter Benjamin is now regarded as one of the most significant thinkers of the twentieth century. Born in Berlin in 1892, Benjamin was a literary critic, philosopher, cultural theorist, and kabbalist. His most famous essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” explored how then-new technologies, like photography and cinema, were changing not just art but the way we see and experience the world. A Marxist with mystical leanings, Benjamin’s work defies easy labels: part poetry, part theory, always searching for the hidden meanings in everyday life. This new biography proposes to situate Benjamin within his Jewish heritage and the turbulent politics and philosophies of the twentieth century. Sophia Hershfield
