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Walter Benjamin on the Angel of History
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Walter Benjamin on the Angel of History

and his surprising connection to the Burning Archive

My mini audiobook reading today is Walter Benjamin’s “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (also translated as “On the concept of history”). It is among the most iconic and poetically evocative of historical essays.

It describes an “Angel of History,” which Benjamin drew from a Paul Klee painting and his knowledge of Judaic traditions of Messiahs and mo…

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