Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
``In a trailblazing, iconoclastic work of cultural history, Eksteins links the modern avant-garde's penchant for primitivism, abstraction and myth-making to the protofascist ideology and militarism unleashed by WW I,'' reported PW . ``This provocative and disturbing reappraisal of modernism rings with authority.'' Photos. (Apr.)
Library Journal
A brilliantly conceived and wonderfully written book of cultural and intellectual history that considers the impact of World War I on the 20th century. Ekstein (history, Toronto) begins by arguing that the ballet The Rite of Spring prefigured the mass psychology that was necessary to the waging of the war. He then carefully elucidates how the soldiers who fought experienced and internalized the horrors of the trenches. The last third of the book deals with the postwar era, considering Lindbergh's flight and its effect on Europe, the best seller All Quiet on the Western Front , and the Hitler phenomenon. Like Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory (LJ 7/75), this will likely become required reading for anyone who seeks to understand the central importance of the Great War to the decades that followed. For both public and college libraries.-- Ann H. Sullivan, Tompkins Cortland Community Coll. Lib., Dryden, N.Y.
Booknews
Describes World War I as the cultural fulcrum on which history turned into the modern age. From the premier of Stravinsky's Rites of Spring in 1913 to the death of Hitler in 1945, Eksteins (history, Toronto) traces the origins, impact and aftermath of the change through the lives and words of ordinary people, works of literature, and such events as Lindberg's flight. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
From the Publisher
"A fertile book." ---Paul Fussell
From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY
"A fertile book." —Paul Fussell
