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Berlin Childhood around 1900

By Walter Benjamin
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Brief Description
Completed in exile in Paris, as the Second World War was dawning, Walter Benjamin looks back at the city of his birth at the beginning of the century. Berlin Childhood around 1900 is both a sensory memoir of childhood as well as a tour of the... Read More
Format: Hardback
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A new translation of Benjamin's moving and groundbreaking memoir of growing up.

A new translation of Benjamin's moving and groundbreaking memoir of growing up.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Completed in exile in Paris, as the Second World War was dawning, Walter Benjamin looks back at the city of his birth at the beginning of the century. Berlin Childhood around 1900 is both a sensory memoir of childhood as well as a tour of the iconic spaces of the city. These are expeditions into the depths of memory, moving through vignettes of domestic settings and classrooms, city squares, parks, and streets.

The memories of childhood merge with a city that is about to disappear into darkness. As his friend, Adorno, wrote, the work is "illuminated by lightning flashes of immediate remembrance... the images this book unearths and brings strangely near are not idyllic and not contemplative. Over them lies the shadow of the Third Reich. And through them dreamily runs a shudder at the long forgotten."

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781836740148

Publisher: Verso Books

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 18 November 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Verso Books

Contributors:

  • Translated by Shierry Weber Nicholsen
  • Translated by Shierry Weber Nicholsen
  • Afterword by Theodor Adorno
  • Introduction by Antonia Hofstaetter
  • Introduction by Antonia Hofstatter

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 13.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 213g

Pages: 144

Collections

Biography & Memoir Non-Fiction Philosophy & Psychology Philosophy & Stoicism Walter Benjamin

About the Author

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) was a German-Jewish Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator and philosopher. He was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and is the author of Illuminations, The Arcades Project, and The Origin of German Tragic Drama. In 1940, he was in Spain, fleeing the Nazis and en route to the United States, when Franco's government cancelled his visa. Expecting repatriation, he took his own life.

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