Edition compiled and prefaced by Florent Perrier

Although Jean-Michel Palmier's « historical and critical » insight offers neither a « new interpretation », nor a synthesis of this work, it nonetheless provides the keys that allow us to decipher Benjamin's purported hermetism. This book dispels the misunderstandings and clichés about the « Marxist rabbi » who fell victim to his own misgivings, and bridges the gaps in our fragmentary and often paraphrastic and simplistic knowledge, too often focused on themes (the aura, the stroller, the cinema, photography or the Parisian passages). The philosophical narrative style intentionally adopted by Jean-Michel Palmier actually conveys much more than a new interpretation of Benjamin's work. Indeed, nothing is less neutral or objective than this « reading » structured around three very familiar allegories : the Ragman, the Angel and the Little Hunchback. A hut, a pair of wings, a hump : three burdens, weighed down by the past and by unkept promises — yet despite everything, still harbouring hope of a rescue, a redemption for history's « defeated ones ».

Jean-Michel Palmier (1944-1998), was a professor of Aesthetics and Art Sciences at Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and a notable expert in artistic and ideological schools of thought during the Weimar Republic.

Florent Perrier, who holds a PhD in Aesthetics from Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), was Jean-Michel Palmier's student for several years. His works address the relations between art, utopia and politics.