In the frenzied final years of the Weimar Republic, Benjamin emerged as the most original public intellectual in the German-speaking world. Volume 2 of the "Selected Writings" is now available in paperback in two parts. In Part 1, Benjamin is represented by two of his greatest literary essays, "Surrealism" and "On the Image of Proust," as well as by a long article on Goethe and a generous selection of his wide-ranging commentary for Weimar Germany's newspapers.