When Marx undertook his analysis of the capitalist mode of production, that mode was in its
infancy. Marx adopted an approach that gave his investigations prognostic value. Going
back to the basic conditions of capitalist production, he presented them in a way that showed
what could be expected of capitalism in the future. What could be expected, it emerged, was
not only an increasingly harsh exploitation of the proletariat but, ultimately, the creation of
conditions which would make it possible for capitalism to abolish itself. Since the …

Walter Benjamin's famous “Work of Art” essay sets out his boldest thoughts—on media and
on culture in general—in their most realized form, while retaining an edge that gets under
the skin of everyone who reads it. In this essay the visual arts of the machine age morph into
literature and theory and then back again to images, gestures, and thought. This essay,
however, is only the beginning of a vast collection of writings that the editors have
assembled to demonstrate what was revolutionary about Benjamin's explorations on media …