This illuminating study of Benjamin's final essay helps unlock the mystery of this great philosopher “Löwy’s close reading … follows Benjamin’s text thesis-by-thesis, bringing out the salient criticisms of orthodox Marxist discourse and highlighting the interruptions of this discourse, the interruption of the concept of time that is at its foundation, through Benjamin’s insertion of messianic time into the banality of progress.”
—Jewish Quarterly

“Sensitive to Benjamin’s profound anxiety and the tragic vision of the world, Löwy traces the unfurling of this ‘revolutionary melancholia,’ which is haunted by the recurrence of disasters … It is unusual to explore the depths of a text in this manner, but it is true that we have here the text of an exceptional thinker.”
—Le Monde