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1930: Europe in the Shadow of the Beast
Contributor(s): Haberman, Arthur (Author)
ISBN: 1771123613     ISBN-13: 9781771123617
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
OUR PRICE:   $22.49  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: September 2018
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Europe - General
- History | Modern - 20th Century
- History | Social History
Physical Information: 0.6" H x 6" W x 8.9" (0.80 lbs) 216 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - 20th Century
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

A study of the major writers and artists who were grappling in 1930 with socio-political issues still central to our lives today, ranging from the dangers of mass culture to the rise of a politics of irrationality.

The year 1930 can be seen as the dawn of a period of darkness, the beginning of a decade that Auden would style "low, dishonest." That year was one of the most reflective moments in modernity. After the optimism of the nineteenth century, the West had stumbled into war in 1914. It managed to survive a conflagration, but it failed in the aftermath to create something valued.

In 1930, Europe was questioning itself and its own viability. Where are we heading? a number of public intellectuals asked. Who are we and how do we build moral social and political structures? Can we continue to believe in the insights and healing quality of our culture? Major thinkers―Mann, Woolf, Ortega, Freud, Brecht, Nardal, and Huxley― as well as a number of artists, including Picasso and Magritte, and musicians such as Weill, sought to grapple with a wide range of issues, including:

  • The viability of a secular Europe with Enlightenment values
  • Coming to terms with a darker view of human nature
  • Mass culture and its dangers; the rise of the politics of irrationality
  • Identity and the "other" in Western civilization
  • New ways to represent the postwar world
  • The epistemological dilemma in a world of uncertainty; and
  • The new Fascism―a new norm or an aberration?

Arthur Haberman sees 1930 as a watershed year in the intellectual life of Europe and with this book, the first to look at the contributions of the public intellectuals of 1930 as a single entity, he forces a reconsideration and reinterpretation of the period.


Contributor Bio(s): Haberman, Arthur: - Arthur Haberman is University Professor of History and Humanities at York University. He is the author of The Making of the Modern Age and the co-author of The West and the World: Contacts, Conflicts, Connections.