《灵韵与救赎:本雅明思想研究》借着对本雅明提出的“灵韵”、“紧急状态”、“国家大计”等诸范畴的考述，把充满歧义与内在扦格的本雅明思想阐释为一个线索清晰、略可予以整体把握的系统。作者对本雅明致思初衷的探问是真切而富于同情理解的，对其理论得失的检讨颇具分寸感而又有相当的深度。对多个“双重的本雅明”：卡夫卡式的本雅明与波德莱尔式的本雅明或布莱希特式的本雅明与阿多诺式的 本雅明所体现的某种时代悲情和精神张力的揭示是《灵韵与救赎:本雅明思想研究》最见特色之处。

Benjamin's famous "Work of Art" essay sets out his boldest thoughts - on media and on culture in general - in their most realized form, while retaining an edge that gets under the skin of everyone who reads it. In this essay the visual arts of the machine age morph into literature and theory and then back again to images, gestures, and thought.This essay, however, is only the beginning of a vast collection of writings that the editors have assembled to demonstrate what was revolutionary about Benjamin's explorations on media. Long before Marshall McLuhan, Benjamin saw that the way a bullet rips into its victim is exactly the way a movie or pop song lodges in the soul.This book contains the second, and most daring, of the four versions of the "Work of Art" essay - the one that addresses the utopian developments of the modern media. The collection tracks Benjamin's observations on the media as they are revealed in essays on the production and reception of art; on film, radio, and photography; and on the modern transformations of literature and painting. The volume contains some of Benjamin's best-known work alongside fascinating, little-known essays - some appearing for the first time in English. In the context of his passionate engagement with questions of aesthetics, the scope of Benjamin's media theory can be fully appreciated.

本书是本雅明收集的从1783年至1883年一个世纪以来的25封书信，书信以时间排序，有的来自法兰克福汇报，有的来自名人书信，有的就来自普通市民阶层，这些书信集中展示了德国在欧洲地位的变迁和自法国大革命以来德国市民阶层的巨大思想变化，尤其有意思的是，本雅明特别注意德国市民 在法国大革命后词汇使用的变化，他对每封书信尤其是这些变化进行了点评，展现出的是这一历史时期德意志人尤其是市民阶层的风云变迁，不仅具有史料价值，而且从一个全新的角度对这一重要历史时期进行重新阐释。 本书由浙江大学历史系范丁梁女士根据德文版译出。

本雅明在本书开篇即坦承其所作是批评而非评论，“批评所探寻的是艺术作品的真理内涵”，他试图揭示隐藏于作为实在内涵的歌德作品中的意义之维。在他看来，开启了古典主义潮流，它试图弄清的并不是伦理的和历史的，而是神话的及语文学的问题。它所思索的不是生成中的意念，而是已成形的、蕴含着生命与语言的内涵。这些丰富而复杂的层面，在歌德晚期作品尤为突出。

In the frenzied final years of the Weimar Republic, amid economic collapse and mounting political catastrophe, Walter Benjamin emerged as the most original practicing literary critic and public intellectual in the German-speaking world. Volume 2 of the Selected Writings is now available in paperback in two parts. In Part 1, Benjamin is represented by two of his greatest literary essays, "Surrealism" and "On the Image of Proust," as well as by a long article on Goethe and a generous selection of his wide-ranging commentary for Weimar Germany's newspapers. Part 2 contains, in addition to the important longer essays, "Franz Kafka," "Karl Kraus," and "The Author as Producer," the extended autobiographical meditation "A Berlin Chronicle," and extended discussions of the history of photography and the social situation of the French writer, previously untranslated shorter pieces on such subjects as language and memory, theological criticism and literary history, astrology and the newspaper, and on such influential figures as Paul Valery, Stefan George, Hitler, and Mickey Mouse.