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Article: Walter Benjamin: A Biography.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Antioch Review
- Article date:
- June 22, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Antioch Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Walter Benjamin: A Biography by Momme Brodersen, tr. Malcolm R. Green and Ingrida Ligers, ed. Martina Dervis. Verso, 334 pp., $35.00. Benjamin (18921940) grew up in a Berlin family which belonged to the Jewish Reform Community, attended services on Sunday, celebrated Christmas, and was largely if temporarily assimilated into the world of wealthy businessmen. After receiving his doctorate in 1919, he was hampered financially by his father's refusal to continue to support him. His philosophically important if seemingly contradictory interests in Jewish mysticism (1915-) and communism (1924-) were nurtured by an imagined or recollected - there is evidence for both - early ...