Customer Reviews

Infancy and History: On the Destruction of Experience (Radical Thinkers)

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This relatively short book reads like a collection of essays rather than a unified whole. Agamben is clearly very intelligent and a good writer, but I am not convinced that he is the 'next great critical theorist' many claim him to be.

The best chapter here is about a series of letters between Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno. Agamben argues in favor of Benjamin's method, a view I'm partial to. There are other interesting moments throughout but also a lot of grappling with the canon, a necessary task for professional Continental Philosophers, perhaps, but not necessarily compelling reading for the rest of us.

This book could be read alongside Derrida's 'The Politics of Friendship'.