Benjamin’s early attempt to understand a nascent technology, remarkably prescient and topical even today
“The illiterate of the future … will not be the man who cannot read the alphabet, but the one who cannot take a photograph.” So declared Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) in his essay A Short History of Photography, originally published in the periodical Literarische Welt in 1931. Beginning with the early experiments of Louis Daguerre and Nicéphore Niépce and concluding with the work of August Sander and Germaine Krull, Benjamin moved beyond the medium itself to address the artistic, societal and political capabilities that photography foretold. A Short History of Photography contains the inklings of his thoughts on “reproducibility” that he would later flesh out in his best-known text, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Benjamin’s view of photography gave early credence to the medium and its practitioners and shaped the methodology by which it can be analyzed.
FORMAT: Pbk, 4.5 x 7.25 in. / 48 pgs / 13 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $14.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $19 ISBN: 9783753304014 PUBLISHER: Walther König, Köln AVAILABLE: 4/22/2025 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by Walther König, Köln. By Walter Benjamin.
Benjamin’s early attempt to understand a nascent technology, remarkably prescient and topical even today
“The illiterate of the future … will not be the man who cannot read the alphabet, but the one who cannot take a photograph.” So declared Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) in his essay A Short History of Photography, originally published in the periodical Literarische Welt in 1931. Beginning with the early experiments of Louis Daguerre and Nicéphore Niépce and concluding with the work of August Sander and Germaine Krull, Benjamin moved beyond the medium itself to address the artistic, societal and political capabilities that photography foretold. A Short History of Photography contains the inklings of his thoughts on “reproducibility” that he would later flesh out in his best-known text, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Benjamin’s view of photography gave early credence to the medium and its practitioners and shaped the methodology by which it can be analyzed.
