Walter Benjamin is one of the most prominent and at the same time enigmatic intellectuals of the 20th century. His work—a mosaic that includes philosophy, literary criticism, Marxist analysis, and syncretic theology—does not fit into simple categories. His writing career progressed from the brilliant esotericism of his early work, through his emergence as a major voice of Weimar culture, to life in exile, with pioneering studies of modern media and the emergence of urban commodity capitalism in Paris. This career developed during the most catastrophic decades of modern European history: the horrors of the First World War, the confusion of the Weimar Republic and the long years of fascism. The biography, written by two leading scholars of Benjamin's work, goes beyond the mosaic and the mythical, presenting this enigmatic figure in all his fullness. Howard Ireland and Michael Jennings make available for the first time a huge amount of information that allows us to clarify and correct the account of the life of an outstanding philosopher. They offer a comprehensive portrait of Benjamin and his era, as well as detailed commentary on his famous works, including The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility, an essay on Baudelaire, and a classic study of German Baroque drama.