MLR, 96. , 2oo0 MLR, 96. , 2oo0 final volume of the series is to be a 'Bibliography',which I hope will be arranged with the userin mind. However, these are minor quibbles only. Each volume presents in concise form the range of artistic and literary manifestations associated with Dada in Zurich, Cologne and Hanover, and will become a major resource for future scholarship. Each volume also demonstrates that from its inception Dada pursued a larger culturalpoliticsthat complemented itsradicaland groundbreakingaesthetic.Given theincreasingimportancethatmosthumanitiesdisciplinesareattachingto 'culture', each volume is alsoa timelyreminderat the end of thiscenturythatthe most radical avant-garde movement made such a significant contribution to our present understandingof twentieth-centuryculture. GOLDSMITHS COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ANDREAS KRAMER WalterBenjamin's OtherHistoy.: Of Stones,Animals,HumanBeingsandAngels. By BEATRICEHANSEN. (Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism, I5) Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress. I998. xi + 207 pp. ?30. Walter Benjamin has become a cult figure among European and American intellectuals.His workis so well researchedthatgroundbreakingnew interpretation no longer seems possible. Many new studies therefore offer a new reading of Benjamin that brings his workstogetherwith other thinkersor writersof different historicalperiods. Beatrice Hansen's studyis one example of this trend;she triesto linkBenjamin'sworkwith Adorno, with whom he had very close contacts, and with Heidegger, whom he detested.She setsout to findBenjamin'sphilosophyof natural, nonhuman history. Startingwith the early pre-MarxistBenjamin, she also tries to reinterprethis later writings. The central text for her study is 'The Origin of the GermanTragicDrama'. In the firstpart of her book, titled 'Towardsa New Theory of Natural History', she not only looks at Benjamin'sintellectualclosenessto Adorno but linkshim with the whole historyof Westernphilosophy. Bergson,Kant, Plato, Nietzsche, Salomon Maimonides, Kierkegaard,Thucydides, Hegel, Cohen, Windelband, Parmenides, Benedetto Croce, Marx, south-west German neo-Kantianism, Vattimo, Rosenzweig, and many othersare mentioned indiscriminately.Hansenjumps from antiquityto the twentiethcenturyin one sentence;German idealism,ancient Greek and Judaic philosophy, existentialism are all thrown together. There is hardly a page where fewer than five heavyweights of philosophy are mentioned. Hansen's conclusions,however,areoftensurprisinglymundane, evenphilosophicalcommonplaces . It remains unclear what Benjamin has to do with this impressivegallery of philosophers. He was, after all, only a well-informed layman in philosophy; his discipline was German literature.One would not guess that from the firstchapters of Hansen's book, nor that 'The Origin of the German Tragic Drama' was a study of Baroque literature. Hansen probably knows more about philosophy than Benjamin ever did. The point she wants to make about him or about his idea of naturalhistory,however, gets lost in this ramble throughthe historyof philosophy. Her language is often clumsy or too dense, perhaps because most of the ideas and concepts she uses derive from other languages. The translations are sometimes curiouslyinadequate, and whilst the German terms sometimes appear in brackets, only the classicalGreekquotes appearin theiroriginallanguagewithouttranslation. The second part of the book, 'Of Stones, Animals, Human Beings and Angels', centres rathermore on Benjaminand his writingson German literature.However, this part does not offera new analysis,but rather summariesof Benjamin'sworks. final volume of the series is to be a 'Bibliography',which I hope will be arranged with the userin mind. However, these are minor quibbles only. Each volume presents in concise form the range of artistic and literary manifestations associated with Dada in Zurich, Cologne and Hanover, and will become a major resource for future scholarship. Each volume also demonstrates that from its inception Dada pursued a larger culturalpoliticsthat complemented itsradicaland groundbreakingaesthetic.Given theincreasingimportancethatmosthumanitiesdisciplinesareattachingto 'culture', each volume is alsoa timelyreminderat the end of thiscenturythatthe most radical avant-garde movement made such a significant contribution to our present understandingof twentieth-centuryculture. GOLDSMITHS COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ANDREAS KRAMER WalterBenjamin's OtherHistoy.: Of Stones,Animals,HumanBeingsandAngels. By BEATRICEHANSEN. (Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism, I5) Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress. I998. xi + 207 pp. ?30. Walter Benjamin has become a cult figure among European and American intellectuals.His workis so well researchedthatgroundbreakingnew interpretation no longer seems possible. Many new studies therefore offer a new reading of Benjamin that brings his workstogetherwith other thinkersor writersof different historicalperiods. Beatrice Hansen's studyis one example of this trend;she triesto linkBenjamin'sworkwith Adorno, with whom he had very close contacts, and with Heidegger, whom he detested.She setsout to findBenjamin'sphilosophyof natural...