Three classic essays ("A Short History of Photography," "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century," "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction") are united by the theme of changes occurring in art as it transitions from being unique to becoming mass-produced and reproducible. Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) invites us to view this process not from a conservative standpoint, but rather to see in its origins new forms of social existence for art, a new anthropology of the "mass audience," and a new communicative function of art within the bourgeois world.