On The Concept Of History by Walter Benjamin
A critique of the idea that history is a smooth, progressive continuum, arguing instead that the past appears as a field of wreckage in which sudden, redeeming ‘now‑moments’ can break the flow; using the image of an angel hurled into the future while facing a piling ruin to show how so‑called progress often conceals catastrophe, the essay calls for a materialist historiography that seizes specific constellations or dialectical images to illuminate forgotten suffering, expose the violence of historicism’s “empty, homogeneous time,” and enable the present to redeem suppressed possibilities and intervene on behalf of the oppressed.
- Published
- 1940
- Nationality
- German
- Length
- Very Short
- Pages
- 5-15 pages
- Original Language
- German
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- Alternate Titles
-
- Theses on the Philosophy of History
- Über den Begriff der Geschichte
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