Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver by Gordon, Peter E.

Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver

An accessible and authoritative biography of Walter Benjamin that guides the reader through the complexity of his...
$48.00 USD
$91.99 USD
$48.00 USD
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Author: Peter E. Gordon
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Subtotal: $48.00
Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver by Gordon, Peter E.

Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver

$91.99 $48.00

Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver

$91.99 $48.00
Author: Peter E. Gordon
Format: Hardcover
Language: English

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 brings Benjamin to life.



Author: Peter E. Gordon
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 02/24/2026
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.90w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780300216868


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2026

About the Author
Peter E. Gordon teaches social theory and philosophy at Harvard University. His books include Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization and A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of Normativity. He lives in Cambridge, MA.

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