Includes bibliographical references and index.

Conceived in Paris in 1927 and still in progress in 1940 when Benjamin fled the Nazis, only to find death on the Spanish border. The Arcades Project is his magnum opus: a new theory of history embodied in a new literary and philosophical historiography. With greater concreteness than had ever been achieved in historical narrative, Benjamin's text immerses the reader in the milieu of the Paris arcades - those precursors of today's shopping malls - during the period 1830-1870, when the modern industrial world was taking shape."--Book jacket. "Like the arcades themselves, Benjamin's master-work is a vast montage in which he quotes and reflects on hundreds of topics - fashion, boredom, the collector, advertising, prostitution, photography, the theory of progress. By excavating from printed sources a wealth of details about daily existence in nineteenth-century Paris, Benjamin brings to life a world of things - from luxury goods, building facades, posters, and clothing fashions to barricades, omnibuses, cafes, and exhibition halls.