This book is the first to consider the presence of history and the question ofhistorical practice in Walter Benjamins work.Some of the essays analyzeBenjamins w... » 

This book is the first to consider the presence of history and the question ofhistorical practice in Walter Benjamins work.Some of the essays analyzeBenjamins writings in cultural history and the philosophy of history. Othersconnect his historical and theoretical practices to issues in contemporaryfeminism and postcolonial studies and to cultural contexts including theUnited States Japan and Hong Kong. In different ways the authors all find inBenjamins specific notion of historical materialism a dialectic betweentextual and cultural analysis which can reinvigorate the relation betweenliterary and historical studies. «