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Rites Of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age Paperback – September 14, 2000
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A rare and remarkable cultural history of World War I that unearths the roots of modernism.
Dazzling in its originality, Rites of Spring probes the origins, impact, and aftermath of World War I, from the premiere of Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring in 1913 to the death of Hitler in 1945.
Recognizing that “[t]he Great War was the psychological turning point . . . for modernism as a whole,” author Modris Eksteins examines the lives of ordinary people, works of modern literature, and pivotal historical events to redefine the way we look at our past and toward our future.
- Print length416 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherMariner Books
- Publication dateSeptember 14, 2000
- Dimensions5.5 x 1.09 x 8.25 inches
- ISBN-100395937582
- ISBN-13978-0395937587
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A Fertile Book." -- Paul Fussell
"A bold and unforgetable journey into the heart of our Daemonic century." - Alfred Kazin —
About the Author
Modris Ekstein is a professor of history at the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus.
Product details
- Publisher : Mariner Books; 1st edition (September 14, 2000)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 416 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0395937582
- ISBN-13 : 978-0395937587
- Item Weight : 14.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1.09 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #310,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #333 in World War I History (Books)
- #950 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences
- #2,623 in World War II History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book insightful and interesting. They describe it as a wonderful, delightful read that stimulates their insights into history. The research is profound and well-researched, providing good information. The writing style is highly readable and seamlessly integrates literature, technology, and the war experience itself. Readers appreciate the powerful imagery and moving stories.
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Customers find the book insightful and thought-provoking. They say it's an engrossing history of the impact of the Great War on society and how art reflects current events. The book captures the war in a way that biographies and military chronicles don't, making it an excellent companion to studying World War I.
"...Wikipedia is a pretty good reference here as it covers basic historical events and is not influenced by the flame wars of more modern topics or..." Read more
"...few photos as well as interesting stories and insights about the interplay between war and the arts (including ballet and classical music) during WWI..." Read more
"...know is that the book, as an academic exercise, is a sound one and enlightening, even if its conclusions might be debatable." Read more
"...This book would be an excellent companion to a study of World War I and its effects, but would be remiss to use it as a singular reference." Read more
Customers find the book interesting and enjoyable to read. They describe it as a must-read for history enthusiasts, informative, and an eye-opener. Readers also mention it's a great work and a classic.
"...the basic idea of a mix between literature and war I found this extraordinary book...." Read more
"This is a truly great work. It is really not a history book in the conventional sense. It is closer to a literary biography of modernism...." Read more
"This book was a great lucky find...." Read more
"...(As an amateur historian, it is my opinion.) It is a great book however and I recommend it, but I did have to reference other material to fully..." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's research quality. They find it scholarly yet not dry, with good information and a unique thesis. The book is well-researched with a clear thesis and interesting quotes from firsthand sources. It provides useful insights into the origins of the Great War.
"This book is scholarly yet not dry...." Read more
"...Still, he makes a soundly-reasoned and well-researched argument...." Read more
"...With countless interesting quotes from firsthand sources and a clear thesis that succinctly posits the theory that the world crossed an irreversible..." Read more
"The author writes a great study between the art movement of the years after the end of the Great War and the legacy of this war...." Read more
Customers find the writing style engaging and readable. They appreciate the author's seamless integration of literature, technology, and the war experience. The book is described as a quick read that provides detailed information without being tedious.
"...I was impressed with the author's analysis of art, ballet and some writing and his discussion of Germany and the German thought process...." Read more
"...Eksteins seamlessly integrates literature, technology, and the war experience itself into a collective portrait of the modern age...." Read more
"...who can synthesize great artistic and historical themes in a persuasive writing style...." Read more
"...As beautifully written as it is insightful...." Read more
Customers find the book's visual content engaging with powerful imagery and moving stories. They appreciate the author's analysis of art, ballet, and writing. The book contains a few photos as well as interesting stories and insights about the Great War.
"This book is scholarly yet not dry. Contains quite a few photos as well as interesting stories and insights about the interplay between war and the..." Read more
"...World War II stemmed directly from WWI. I was impressed with the author's analysis of art, ballet and some writing and his discussion of Germany..." Read more
"...did a very profound research, making his investigation informative, eye opener ,and delightful to read." Read more
"...Full of surprises, powerful imagery and moving stories." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2014I bought this book after reading Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory. Looking for something that followed the basic idea of a mix between literature and war I found this extraordinary book. In the case of the former, Fussell gives a very comprehensive account about writers who were soldiers and viceversa. In the case of Eksteins, he proposes a drama in three memorable acts: I) the life before the war, II) the war itself, and III) the aftermath of the war. Fussell's Great War is a big collection of data put together to make sense of a senseless war. Eksteins' Rites of Spring, on the other hand, it's the chronicle of a difficult birth, the birth of an epoch.
What I have said doesn't mean that one book is better than the other. Instead it means that they are complementary works. Now well, in this vein, what you get in Rites of Spring is an elaborated but very natural picture of a crazy world. So crazy, that if you take what Eksteins calls the First Act and then you compare it with the Third one, you arrive to the conclusion that the Great War didn't have any sense from the start and that after all those millions of deaths and wounded you arrive to the Third Act without knowing who really won the conflict.
Thus, Rites of Spring is not a book about the absurdity of the existence, but a book about the human existence facing the dilemma of choosing between blind options; blind because the consequences are always hard to grasp. The IWW was the end of an era and the begininng of another. The bridge between the two banks took a heavy toll. The industrial revolution gave us the telephone and the machine gun, the airplaine and the bomber, the anesthesia and the poisonous gas. So the question is how do you solve the equation. If you want the telephone, then you have to face the machine guns.
So strange an epoch...
The first time I heard Stravinsky's Rites of Spring I thought, boy, what a rarity. It's neither Bach nor Mozart. It's absolutely new, different, weird. In 1913 it was even harder to translate those armonies if you didn't know The Beatles or The Rollingstones. To me it was easier to love that strange and sophisticated music than to those guys in Paris on 1913. Gee, it had to be really hard to them. To understand an epoch like the twentieth century you need something different, you need to take a walk on the wild side which is the aesthetic side of life. So here enters Eksteins to give you a memorable and delicate comprehension of a crazy epoch, an epoch that gave birth to a child whose mother was a steam engine that nobody could call mummy.
Perhaps this is the reason why Eksteins suggests that art is the only method for explaining the war. Don't try to comprehend the war by counting the corpses and the wounded. The building that were destroyed or the ruined cathedrals. There is another option. Try instead listening Stravinsky and reading Eksteins' Rites of Spring.
Five stars plus.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2014The book starts out with a review of the changes in architecture and art near the end of le Belle Époque in France. The book covers the writings of such luminaries as Thomas Mann (literature), Nijinsky (Ballet), Auguste Perret (architecture), and Igor Stravinsky (music). The initial theme of the book basically covers that fact that the seeds of change are born many years before the cataclysmic events that we relate to and remember as the cause of the change. (In effect, the OLD is swept away by a series of events and the NEW is now free to grow and bloom on the ashes and wreckage of the old.) This is evoked by the production of Stravinsky's "The Rites of Spring" as performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1913 in Paris. The theater itself is an astonishing departure from its most famous predecessor, the Opéra de Paris Garnier. A comparison of the latest changes from the era of le Belle Époque is shown in the Opéra de la Bastille (not mentioned in the book).
The concrete structure of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the production of "The Rites of Spring", and the dancing of Nijinsky all come together to show that the NEW was in it's infancy and only lying in wait for the OLD to be swept away. The First World War was this instrument of destruction. The book then proceeds to work through the many ways that the war performed this destruction.
Some of these include:
1) The wholesale destruction of the early combatants (and their now old fashioned sensibilities of combat) by a newly mechanized and industrial method of warfare.
2) The realization as the war progressed that there really were no non-combatants as everybody soon became potential targets under the (proverbial) guns. The German naval raids on Hartlepool and Scarborough, the first air raids of London, and the shelling of Paris (the Paris Gun) all portended the truly mass destruction of cities in the Second World War.
3) The deployment of the new weapons of war, the airplane, submarine, and tank.
4) The use of mechanical weapons as mass killing machines like the Maxim machine gun (infantry), the breech loaded pneumatically recoiled rapid fire canon like the French 75 (infantry and counter-battery), and the super heavy cannon like the Skoda 30.5cm & the Krupp 42cm (fortifications).
And, finally, the pace of the war itself as it went through the destruction of men, machines, cities, and regimes. (And, while not mentioned in this book, I personally believe that the Second World War was a continuation of this process. Just have a look at modern views of Paris, which was not heavily damaged in WW2 with London & Berlin, which were, for examples of architectural changes.)
So, stick to it with the book & you will get an alternative view to the ultimate results of the war other than a simple rendition of the effects of the combat.
Additionally, when reading this book:
1) Use an internet connection and take a look at the write-ups on the people, events, and machines mentioned. Wikipedia is a pretty good reference here as it covers basic historical events and is not influenced by the flame wars of more modern topics or people (like Bush & Obama where the descriptions change on an hourly basis).
2) Get a copy of Stravinsky's "The Rites of Spring" from your local library and listen to it. Also, you might also want to listen to "The Firebird".
- Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2024This book is scholarly yet not dry. Contains quite a few photos as well as interesting stories and insights about the interplay between war and the arts (including ballet and classical music) during WWI. Really fascinating.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2017This is a truly great work. It is really not a history book in the conventional sense. It is closer to a literary biography of modernism. Its key contention is that the First World War changed everything at a fundamental level. The most important change was ideological or moral. The old values that had held sway through the 19th century no longer seemed tenable or even relevant. Before the war the avant-garde had adopted modernism as a rebellion against bourgeois conformity and sterility. Its anti-rational and nihilistic tendencies had however limited its adoption by the wider public. The Great War shattered the old verities and led to a general rejection of accepted values. This led to a general growth and expansion of modernism. With the death of traditional values and standards, people sought to escape the constraints of history and fashion an artistic construct to provide meaning for their lives. This tendency,he claims, helped give rise to Fascism and Nazism.
Top reviews from other countries
- DKReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 18, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars A really interesting book giving a profound insight into the ...
A really interesting book giving a profound insight into the culture and society that went to war in 1914. Opened up a number of new perspectives and lines of thought for me about modern civilization. Well worth reading.
- TropicalvoiceReviewed in Canada on May 28, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars A Cultural History Must-read
I have read a great deal of history but never before have I read it in this form.
Modris Ekstein's 'Rites of Spring' is a well-crafted history of the transition from the Belle Epoque to fin-de-siècle angst and the debacle of WWI through art and culture. It reads very well, is academic and gives us reasons for the pervasive social malaise from the 19th to the 20th centuries. An alternative view of the bristling, sabre-rattling political events leading up to the Great War.
A must-read for anyone interested in history, culture, art and civilization.
The sequel of sorts, Solar Dance, is equally fascinating and cleverly laid out. Eksteins uses Vincent van Gogh as the pivot around which profound cultural change revolves. These books were my 'eureka' moment.
Both should be on curriculums for students of history.
-
recluseReviewed in Japan on October 27, 2004
4.0 out of 5 stars 面白い作品です
20世紀のavan gardeの文化は、”第一次大戦での塹壕戦での兵隊としての経験が決定的な役割を果たした”とのテーゼに基づいて書かれた20世紀全般の文化史です。話は、トーマス・マンの小説”ヴェニスでの死”を演技として追いかける形で人生を全うしたディアギレフの”春の祭典”によるパリ征服を克明にたどるところから始まります。19世紀のビクトリア朝並びに20世紀初頭のエドワード朝のモラルや慣習への反逆をこの春の祭典初演に見出すわけです。そして話は、対戦直前へのベルリンへと移り、このような時代の閉塞状況からの脱却への興奮に、ドイツ精神の特徴とその跳躍を見ることになります。この大戦直前のベルリンの描写は非常いききとしています。話は、塹壕での経験による、19世紀的な人間観並びに美意識の決定的な変貌へと進み、その集大成が大戦後のドイツ文化の変貌となるというわけです。”西部戦線異状なし”の受容も大戦後の道徳の真空状況という文脈の中で再解釈されます。最後を締めくくるのは、ナチズムによる政治の芸術化並びに美学化です。個別のドイツの芸術運動については、非常に限られたスペースしか割かれていませんが、この基本モティーフが持つ説得力はなかなかのものがあります。この作品を出発点として個別のavan gardeの運動に向かうのがいいのかもしれません。
- Imogen de la BereReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 17, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Like nothing else
A most extraordinary book, exhilarating, deep, complex and learned, linking the Ballets Russes to the rise of Nazism, and the birth of the modern world. Like nothing else.
- forbesReviewed in Canada on October 12, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars An enlightening take on how the world became 'modern'.
A thoroughly enjoyable account of how the modern world came to be modern. It starts with Kijinsky, the Russian dancer, who defied all the conventions of the time. The research is exhaustive and the facts he unearths make it a lively and scholarly book. If you like reading history, I do recommend this book.