Rites of Spring : The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age - Softcover

Modris Eksteins

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0886192021 ISBN 13: 9780886192020

Publisher: Key Porter Books, 2002

Synopsis

In a remarkable display of originality and discerning historical analysis Rites Of Spring describes the origins, the impact, and the aftermath of the Great War of 1914-1918, arguably the most traumatic event of this century.

About this title

About the Author

MODRIS EKSTEINS is professor emeritus of history at the University of Toronto. His bestselling Walking Since Daybreak won the Pearson Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize, and was named one of the Best Books of 2000 by the Times Literary Supplement, the Los Angeles Times and the Globe and Mail. Solar Dance, the much-anticipated follow-up to Rites of Spring, will be published in  January 2012.

From the Inside Flap

ble display of originality and discerning historical analysis Rites Of Spring describes the origins, the impact, and the aftermath of the Great War of 1914-1918, arguably the most traumatic event of this century.

Reviews

"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.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Key Porter Books
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0886192021
• ISBN 13: 9780886192020
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 396