Walter Benjamin and the Idea of Natural History

In this incisive new work, Eli Friedlander demonstrates that Walter Benjamin's entire corpus, from early to late, comprises a rigorous and sustained philosophical questioning of how human beings belong to nature.

Across seemingly heterogeneous writings, Friedlander argues, Benjamin consistently explores what the natural in the human comes to, that is, how nature is transformed, actualized, redeemed, and overcome in human existence. The book progresses gradually from Benjamin's philosophically fundamental writings on language and nature to his Goethean empiricism, from the presentation of ideas to the primal history of the Paris arcades. Friedlander's careful analysis brings out how the idea of natural history inflects Benjamin's conception of the work of art and its critique, his diagnosis of the mythical violence of the legal order, his account of the body and of action, of material culture and technology, as well as his unique vision of historical materialism.

Featuring revelatory new readings of Benjamin's major works that differ, sometimes dramatically, from prevailing interpretations, this book reveals the internal coherence and philosophical force of Benjamin's thought.

"Friedlander's newest book, titled Walter Benjamin and the Idea of Natural History, goes to show not only that he is still not convinced Benjamin is not a philosopher, but that he himself has become even more convincing and effective in proving the contrary. Moving further and bolder along the lines drawn in the previous study, in this book he sets upon a reconstruction of a fully-fledged philosophical project that he identifies within the whole body of Benjamin's work."—Adam Lipszyc, New Benjamin Studies

"This book represents an important contribution to the new wave of Benjamin scholarship.... The idea of natural history emerges in Friedlander's treatment as an important theme able to bring together otherwise disparate topics and thereby shed light on their place in Benjamin's thinking."—Alison Ross, European Journal of Philosophy

"There has never been any doubt about the brilliance of Benjamin's individual works.... Yet heretofore no one has undertaken to make the corpus cohere. This is Friedlander's task, and the result is revelatory and reinvigorating.... Highly recommended." —M. Uebel, CHOICE

"[Walter Benjamin and the Idea of Natural History] may allow us to reread Benjamin with new clarity and exactness and... displays Friedlander's great attention to detail and rigorous scholarship." —Michael Villanova, Contemporary Political Theory

"Friedlander's book resembles a work of origami, comprised of separate pieces folded together to create the illusion of a single, intricate form. And, just as complex origami sometimes requires glue, Friedlander's distinctive readings of Benjamin turn out to be an essential adhesive. In particular, the insights he offers about Benjamin's influences, from Schopenhauer to Goethe, contextualize the philosopher's work as only retrospective critique can do." —Sarah Moorhouse, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Friedlander succeeds beautifully and convincingly in presenting Benjamin's seemingly heterogeneous oeuvre as a coherent philosophical effort. Timely reading for philosophers, Benjamin scholars, and all readers interested in the question of the human as a life-form in trying times." —Eva Geulen, Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung

"Friedlander's highly original study resituates the interpretation and evaluation of Benjamin's immensely fecund work within the context of the most advanced contemporary thinking on first and second nature. The book will have a considerable impact across the humanistic disciplines." —David E. Wellbery, University of Chicago

"Friedlander's interpretative lens offers his readers a genuinely illuminating and deeply convincing way of appreciating both the local detail and the overarching significance of Benjamin's texts." —Stephen Mulhall, University of Oxford