Myth and Metropolis

A study of Benjamin's lifelong fascination with the city and forms of metropolitan experience. Benjamin's critical account of the modern urban environment is traced through a number of key texts. This book highlights their relevance for our contemporary understanding of modernity.

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Walter Benjamin is now widely recognized as one of the most original thinkers of the 20th century. This book is a study of Benjamin's lifelong fascination with the city and forms of metropolitan experience. Benjamin's critical account of the modern urban environment is traced through a number of key texts: the pioneering sketches of Naples, Marseilles and Moscow; his childhood reminiscences of Berlin; and his unfinished studies of 19th-century Paris and the poet Charles Baudelaire. The book emphasizes the importance of these writings for an interpretation of Benjamin's work as a whole, and highlights their relevance for our contemporary understanding of modernity. It should be of interest to anyone concerned with Benjamin's work, and to scholars and students in social theory, cultural analysis and urban studies.