'Sensitive to Benjamin's profound anxiety and the tragic vision of the world, Lowy 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

'Lowy'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 tis foundation, through Benjamin's insertion of messianic time into the banality of progress.' --Jewish Quarterly

Michael Lowy is Research Director of Sociology at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris. His previous books include Redemption and Utopia: Liberation Judaism in Central Europe, Marxism in Latin America and The War of the Gods: Religion and Politics in Latin America