Rites of Spring: Exploring the Impact of WWI on the Emergence of the Modern Age

Avid Readers: Brilliant book!

Germany on Aug 19, 2023

Moisio: This book came to me, I’ll sheepishly concede, by website, which informed me I might like it because I had favorably reviewed Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory. I knew nothing of Ecksteins but swallowed the hook and bought the book. It sat for a while but I have no regrets.

Ecksteins’ cultural history is an academic undertaking, and features three main sections, or “Acts.” The first takes a look at the pre-war art scene in Europe, focusing on the genesis of Stravinsky’s ballet and its premier performances in Paris and Berlin. The Modernist ideas evinced in the ballet resonated differently by society, Ecksteins argues, and the contrary receptions reflected different inclinations toward revolutionary thought. As he moves through his second “Act,” Ecksteins’ focus turns to the war itself and the various national motivations. The Germans seemed animated by a forward-looking, revisionist mysticism while the English looked to traditional values for inspiration. The finale seeks to draw a line through the singularity of the Great War, from the individualism of German mysticism to the displaced narcissism of the German fascists.

In some ways,...

United States on Aug 10, 2021

DK: 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.

United Kingdom on Sep 18, 2017

forbes: 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.

Canada on Oct 12, 2015

David Ecale: The 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...

United States on Dec 14, 2014

daniel: Eksteins tried to grasp the beginning of modernism in a book which is an impossible task. At the end of the day he summarized everything well enough. The reader knows what else to read if they found an interest in certain topics

Canada on Nov 03, 2014

Tropicalvoice: 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.

Canada on May 28, 2013