The most interesting cultural history of 20th Century Europe available

Cubist Warfare | Rites of Spring : The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age | Modris Eksteins

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	• Rites of Spring : The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age Modris Eksteins KEY PORTER BOOKS, 2002 - 396 pages average customer review:based on 26 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Superbly Written Book

This book totally changed the way I thought about early 20th Century history. Eksteins is not only ingenious in thought, but also in the way he arranges the story. This books is deserving of all the accolades it has recieved.

The most interesting cultural history of 20th Century Europe available

Rites of Spring is an unparalleled work of cultural and historical synthesis, and easily the most interesting cultural history of 20th Century Europe available.

Cubist Warfare

Professor Ecksteins' book is, on one level, a history that places the Great War in the context of the popular cultural zeitgeist that produced it. While other books have analyzed the outbreak of the war from the perspective of politicians and diplomats, Ecksteins portrays it as a popular cultural upheaval. In this way, this book distinguishes itself from other histories of the period.

On a deeper level, however, the book is a meditative essay on the problem of modernity. In a brief but elegant way, the author tells the story of how the West descended into aesthetic nihilism as it entered the 20th Century. At the turn of the 20th Century, Europe (in culture, art and thought) gave up on the prospect of reason and ethics, and placed all of its hope in aesthetics as an absolute standard of value. By abandoning the metaphysical True and Good in favor of existential Beauty, European culture freed itself to transgress all rules and restraints in pursuit of the tragic and the sublime. The author points out that this was as true on the battlefield as it was in Stravinsky. It was this cultural movement that enabled "total war" and set the tone for the century to come.

The reason this book is so important today is that modernity has not left us; indeed, it has metastasized around the globe. While this book suggests no solution to our problem, it does help to explain how we got here.

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One of the best books on the Great War - ever

I read excerpts of this in university, and then purchased the book as it was so compelling. I have never read anything that comes close to really giving one a true account of the soldier's experience in the First World War. The descriptions are poetic and profound, and the book puts it together in a manner that conveys the nuances of the war in ways no film or interview can - not any that I've ever seen anyway. There are still passages that stick in my head (years later) because they are so vivid and eye-opening - more so than anything else I've read or seen on the MANY documentaries and films and research I've done about this time. If you're doing research on this period - this is an excellent book. A good companion is Siegred Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (much more factual than the embellished Robert Graves' book Good-bye to All That. This is worth every penny and something you'll refer to again and again if you're a history buff and like to read.

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A Must read!

A brilliant book and one that should be read by anyone with an interest in the first half of the twentieth century. Eksteins brings a fresh and thought provoking outlook to the tired tropes about the Great War. It was the first book I read that signaled a new shift in the perspective of that war. Other writers that take off from here are Paul Fussell, Niall Ferguson and Hew Strachan. But this is the first and by far the best. Don't miss this extraordinary book.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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