Modernism Books

My boyfriend's father convinced me that, as an art history major, I needed to read this book. I was a little hesitant, but after the first chapter I was completely hooked.

This was a truly powerful book. No matter that it is not a true biography, it was beautifully written and moving. I would recommend this to anyone with even a passing interest in art.

Amazing book and so very well written as all of Stone's other books are...I have always been mesmerised by Van Gogh's paintings, especially when I saw an exhibit of his in London.The colours were so wonderful that I just stood there infront of those pieces of art like a zombie ! I loved this book !

I loved this book. For someone like me, with just a passing knowledge of art and art history, it was pretty amazing to learn about Van Gogh's development as an artist and the Impressionist art movement. In addition, I think that its two major themes of expression and immortality are going to have a lasting effect on me.

By expression, I mean that Van Gogh put all his time and energy into expressing himself in a way that he felt was making the best use of his skills. For him, his calling was a new form of art, and he stuck with it despite receiving no recognition or profit for his work during his lifetime. By immortality, I mean that although Van Gogh was not successful in his lifetime, his work lives on and is hung in the most important museums in the world.

Highly recommended.

This is a beautiful novel about a beautiful human being. If you love Van Gogh's paintings (he is my personal favorite of all painters) then by all means, you need to read this wonderful book. In his prose, Stone is able to paint a vivid, vibrant, illuminating portrait of an amazing artist. I was truly blown away and completely consumed from the first chapter on. I actually read this fine story after visiting the Musee d'Orsay (Museum Orsay) in Paris and seeing first hand the magnificent works of this illustrious Impressionist. Of all the great many paintings presented at the Louvre and d'Orsay, it was the Van Gogh's that captivated me more than all the others (which is saying a lot, because the whole place is captivating!). I couldn't believe some of his self-portraits. What really fascinated me the most was the despondency in those steel blue eyes of his. This is what led me to read this story. I wanted to know where all that pain and suffering came from. Irving Stone answered all of my questions and then some. He is a brilliant and insightful writer and I will be looking forward to reading his novel "The Agony and the Ecstasy" which is based on the life of another favorite artist of mine - Michelangelo.

Anyone who is struggling to become an artist needs to read this! Talk about sacrifice and desire and heart and passion... this man Van Gogh was a true original. A man like no other before or since.

"...for by sadness the countenance of the heart is made better."

I can't recommend this one enough.

I should have read this biography sooner. I used to be in love with his paintings, and even fantasized that IF I were to travel back in time, I would've married him -- all this BEFORE I read this book. After I read it I found out that there was one such infatuated woman (Margot), and also a tragic unrequited love story that led him to religion and then to painting. Anyone who is creative will sympathize with the extent to which pain can be transformed into the strength to create. The creative path is not always materially rewarding, and even if it is all an artist has, it will continuously change others' lives. I absorbed every word of this book and was hooked until the very end. Poverty and disinterest is ephemeral... belief in oneself is revolutionary.

This a great collection of poems from the past! If you enjoy whimsy, this is for you!

with eliot, a maximum of content is achieved through a FORM worked with a
care and conciousness not seen perhaps since the greeks. he understood,
as he once wrote, that the novel form ended with flaubert. in the centuries after picasso and stravinsky there is no place for anything in
literature which makes people remain sitting, whithout standing and perhaps dancing. the same thing could be said about pound, very different though very twin.

The Eliot of despair, the Eliot of 'Prufrock' and 'Wasteland' is contended with and overcome by the Eliot of the 'Quartets'. The message of modern mankind's meaninglessness, the broken fragments ( of Tradition) shored against his ruin is replaced by the vision of sacred turning, a Christian vision of redemption. Eliot is a writer whose work and life break down into these two distinct periods each of which has its champions in defining what is best in him.
As one raised on 'April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land' and 'Let us go then you and I when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table' the most memorable lines are certainly of the first phase where it ends not with a bang but with a whimper.
Yet my admiration for the hypnotic power of Eliot's memorable lines is strongly qualified by my knowledge of his 'Burbank with a Baedaker, and Bluestein with a Cigar' with his all too fashionable literary anti- Semitism. Of course Eliot was not preaching death camps and extermination but he did connect his work to the tradition of Christian Anti- Semitism.
Thus I have always had difficulty being comfortable with my 'enjoying of Eliot's poetry. And I have never been able to sympathetically read 'The Quartets.' They have always seemed to me to be too impersonal characterless and abstract.
Eliot who for most of the century strode the English Departments as if he were a colossus did noble work in reviving interest in 'The Metaphysicals' but somehow failed in my mind to write a poetry humanly rich in the deepest sense.

When you think of the best poets ever, T.S. Eliot is one of those that comes to mind. His work is well crafted, intelligent, beautifully written, and has a flow to it that few poets can match. And this is a fine collection for the Eliot lover or for the reader unfamiliar with Eliot. It's divided into several sections. The first section is his Prufrock section, poems from 1917, which contains probably his finest poems: "Prufrock", "Preludes" "Rhapsody on a Windy Night", "Hysteria", among others. Then there is the Poems 1920 section which also contains many fine poems ("Sweeney Erect" and "The Hippopotamus" being my favorites). Then follows his masterpiece The Wasteland. Then The Hollow Men which is followed by the wonderful Ash Wednesday. Then the Ariel Poems (which contains "Journey of the Magi"). Then there are two unfinished poems, "Sweeney Agonistes" and "Coriolan" which I thought were weak. Maybe they would have been great had he ever finished them. Then there is a section called minor poems followed by the mediocre "Choruses from 'The Rock.' And then there is what I consider to be his true masterpiece, "Four Quartets." And the book finishes with some occasional verses, one of which is a sweet and touching poem to his wife. This is a great collection of poems.

Yep, this is a great collection of Eliot's works. I initially found out about Eliot throught the Movie 'Apocalypse Now' in which Brando is heard reciting the poem 'The Hollow Men'. The poem sounded so good I hunted it down and came across this little book.

My favourite poems would have to be 'The Hollow Men', 'Love song of Prufrock', 'Ash Wednesday' and 'Rannoch, by Glencoe (perfectly captured, drive through Rannoch and you'll see ;-)

Yep, definetly worth a read.

As a graduate student of counseling psychology, I read on average 300 pages a week for school. But after my reading for school is done, only one book can keep my attention, and that's Richardson's biography on James.

If you want to see American psychology at its roots, there's no one else to start with than James. He's the most colorful, most quoted and most brilliant early psychologist in America and yet one of the least known and most under-rated.

This 500-page breathtaking tour de force of James sets the standard for the life of William James. For me, Richardson brought James back to life for as long as this book continues to be in print!

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of psychology, especially the history of psychology in America. Also recommended to anyone who enjoys reading about the lives of great men and women of the past.

James isn't just for academics. He was a staunch advocate for psychology as a practical field to help us live richer and fuller lives. He didn't just study psychology (and medicine, and philosophy) - he lived psychology at a time when the field was only being born.

Richardson's biographies of Thoreau and Emerson are two of the best books I've encountered in my life of voracious reading and this is one is just as wondrous. I cannot read any of these books in public, because they all make me want to weep and clutch my chest and shout, "At last! Everything has been revealed!"

I wish I could explain why Richardson's biographies are different from anyone else's. It's not just an artful piling up of delightful and distressing facts. Instead it's like the doorbell rings and you have a new best friend: William James. There's something magical and occult about this. It's not like he went to the research library, it's like he drew mystic diagrams on the floor.

Richardson writes that one of James' gifts was "his uncanny ability to pick up redemptive ideas from his reading." And it is Richardson's gift too, to fill each page with life-giving ideas. These biographies are as purely inspirational as a strong Lao coffee with sweetened condensed milk. Reading them makes me prone to fits of euphoria.

Richardson points toward the sources of James' genius-- one of the most important of which was James' own depression and heartbreak. He writes, "James had a remarkable capacity to convert misery and unhappiness into intellectual and emotional openness and growth. It is almost as though trouble was for him a precondition for insight." How hopeful that is!

Richardson's compassion for his subject spills out, somehow, to the reader, and makes one feel that one's own nonsense and bleakness do not render one disqualified for a whole human life. What more can I ask for?

More than an interesting read, not only into the life of one of the gotfathers of psychology and pragmatism, but of the period. Well written.

I would suggest reading this book first before reading some of William James other books. This book gives you an overview and thought process to give the reader a context for understanding all of his work. I am 35 years old and know of no one in my age that reads William James but I just wish this book came out years ago before I read all of his work.

I need not repeat the summaries set forth below by other reviewers, since these explain both Richardson's method -- to tell the life story through the work -- and the essentials of James' theories. What I will say is that, even if you have no background in philosophy or psychology, you should read this brilliant, passionate biography. James wrote for a popular as well as a professional audience; he was open and curious to all experience, and wished to be inclusive rather than exclusive in disseminating his ideas. Richardson is clear and succinct in explaining James theories -- often in the man's own, crisp, evocative language and clarifying analogies. Moreover, the concepts that James developed have in many cases become part of our popular vocabulary, including through organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous, which Richardson reports took inspiration from James' Gifford lectures, published in the U.S. as "The Varieties of Religious Experience."

I had not read James for many years but, since reading this biography, have purchased a collection of his writings and am re-reading many of his works. You will come away from "In the Maelstrom of American Modernism" with a better understanding of both American values and ideals, and the history of U.S. higher education. Most importantly, however, you will come away with enormous admiration for the radiant personality that was William James, or as Richardson exclaims (using italics, not caps) at the end of this great work, for "the SPIRIT the man." When I finished reading, I not only wanted to read William James; I was sorry that I had not known him or had him as a teacher. That's how good this book is -- for every reader.

Carney's book is scientific writing at its best. The book, despite the level of abstraction, is totally captivating. A lot of connections to sociological theories (pragmatism) are used to penetrate the characters and C:s way of filming (as well as interesting observations about Hitchcock and Orson Welles). Also, this is a book about being human as much as it is about the films of Cassavetes. The book is well structured with one film and analysis per chapter. I'm not a film student but I learned a lot from reading this. Highly recommended!

I doubt that I can say anything about this book that hasn't been said before but this is, by every measure, an outstanding examination of Cassavetes amazing body of work.
I go back to this book every six months or so and have for a number of years. It is a very thorough, reverent, and insightful reference book but it goes well beyond that. Though very full of information, it is personal enough that it has allowed (and encouraged) me to go and evaluate the films myself without the feeling that there is a "law" or an agenda already set with these films.
The greatest beauty of Cassavetes' films is that each one belongs to the individual; meaning that every person who chooses to lend his or her heart to the characters, stories, and subject matter(s) can get something out of it that belongs solely to that person. The films can excite, enrage, entertain, and rattle you in ways that films seldom do.

Cassavetes films make you more than an audience member as they make you more aware than ever that you just might still be human.

Great book and highly reccomended.

I originally got this book and read the whole thing, before i had seen any of cassavetes movies. This is not a recommended route. I have now seen all of his films, except for husbands, and i can't tell you how amazing i think the importance of this book is. I wonder what the ratio is between the people who disagree and agree with it's context, in respect to it's attitude towards american cinema. the book really does rewire your brain. The people who i am friends with, who are also interested in film are dumb founded when ever i casually undermine 2001 or citizen kane in a conversation. More importantly though, this book, like Cassavetes films, extends into life and actually opens you up to knew spiritual territory
you didn't think about. One last point: Does any one notice how suprisingly objective Carney is when he mentions his most hated film makers like Spielberg ? Get this book. It may feel too intellectual, but it really isn't. If you think that then you are reading it too quickly and not thinking about what it's actually saying.

I'm not sure what book the reviewer below this read, but I don't know how many times I'd have to read about films that completely re-imagine the way I (and our popular culture) see the world and my own experience before I'd feel "bored" or anything less than inspired and envigorated. In fact, I read this book very often - not just to gain information, like a dictionary or an encyclopedia, giving me facts and figure data I didn't have before, but as mental calethenics, or something like spiritual openess training. This is a much more meaningful and important activity than thematic comparison and contrsating, no matter how technically interesting that is. As the concepts and points of view on the world process thru my brain as I read them off the page, I gain new abilities to understand and see - and this takes work, and often repetition. So I reccomend anyone who reads this book and hopes to gain insight, not just into Cassavetes and his films, but into their own personal attitudes, to keep themselves OPEN, as Cassavetes explicitly did in every frame of film he exposed, and to always give the artist (or author) the benefit of the doubt before passing judgement based on arbitrary ulterior motives (which, naturally, we all have). This isn't easy (especially to the greatly film cultured), but I dare say you'll enjoy this book, and your life, a lot more.

Almost everything Carney says, you tend to utterly hate him for at first. His most recent article seemed so pessimistic that I spent an hour in my apartment, sitting in front of the TV depressed by it all.

Everything Carney writes tends to be tough at first, because, like Cassavetes, he mentions truths about life that very few people wish to confront. There is no evasion of reality in this book. People can be horrible to each other. We all die in the end. That's life.

Carney doesn't analyse Cassavetes' work in relation to other movies and cultural trends (as most film professors tend to do), but prefers to focus entirely on the performances of the characters on screen. Like Cassavetes, he never really explains the characters' motivations, but instead focuses on how they react to their environments. Everything he writes is about life -- you'll find nothing about tendentious compositions, popular culture, or auteur theory. The only important thing here is Carney's love for the characters and their creator.

One of the greatest books ever written on American film.

I highly recommend this well-written, balanced biography of Thomas Eakins. It would be a perfect choice for readers with any level of familiarity with Eakins' paintings. I agree with the other reviewers that the book does an excellent job of placing Eakins' work in its historical context. Eakins emerges as a fascinating personality, and a guy who would have been great to know. In my opinion, Kirkpatrick deals honestly with the controversial aspects of Eakins' character, but without dwelling on them ad nauseum.

I thought that the descriptions of the paintings themselves were especially effective. The book communicated exactly the information I wanted to read about for paintings like The Gross Clinic and Max Schmitt in a Single Scull: the main points of the design, the background and tecnhical details, the dramatic impact, and the pyschological levels. I have read very few biographies of artists that were this helpful.

The book is generously and beautifully illustrated. There are 42 color plates, and each of those paintings is described in detail in the text. There are also a number of drawings, sketches, maps, and photographs (some taken by Eakins, and others of Eakins and his family and friends). The photos in particular (such as the one of Eakins, himself nude, carrying a nude female toward the camera) underscore the independent and controversial aspects of Eakins' character.

This was a very enjoyable read, and a tribute to a great artist.

A common myth of all poor starving artists is that they will be discovered after they're dead and be venerated forever. In an age when you can get rich and famous by glueing broken crockery to canvas or stuffing a dead fish into a tank of formaldehyde, it is usually a case of a poor choice of publicists than undiscovered talent and the real loser is the poor fool who buys contemporary art for a high price only to watch the value crash when the artist moves on and his work starts to fall apart or rot.

But there was a time when truly great artists did suffer. We all know about Van Gogh, but Thomas Eakins was also a classic example. Everyone loves his sports pictures and his two group portraits of heroic doctors lecturing their students (the Gross Clinic and the Agnew Clinic) even make a Christian Scientist envy those who have chosen the medical profession.

But for my money, his portraits stake the primary claim to Eakins' greatness. His sitters usually refused to accept their portraits, some destroyed them, others refused to sit at all (Mr. Kirkpatrick quotes one lifelong friend of Eakins who always refused to sit for him because he was afraid that Eakins would uncover what he had spent his lifetime trying to conceal).

And I'd imagine that viewing your Eakins-painted portrait for the first time must have been an eerie, almost supernatural event. Looking at his splendid portraits today, you KNOW the subjects, their hardships and triumphs, their hopes and fears. These are not prettified and bowdlerized pictures to hang on a wall, these are the real thing. It is as if Eakins stripped away the skin of his sitters to reveal the pure psyche underneath. They are beautiful and informative and moving. Fifteen minutes with an Eakins is more enlightening than a month in a room of Sargeants.

Mr. Kirkpatrick's fine biography is one of the best on any subject. He manages to capture the man and his times and the man IN his times, in a way that few biographers can accomplish. He manages to make the story exciting, even as he takes the reader through an almost brushstroke by brushstroke description of Eakins' painting process.

At first, my only reservation was the title. The point of it is to show how Eakins fame after death was his revenge for the tragedy of his career (a close and valued student conspiring to replace him, loss of reputation for insisting on painting things as they are, base and highly publicized accusations [about which Mr. Kirkpatrick carefully assembles the evidence for and against, describing the scandals as fairly and dispassionately as he can], rejection of his works, etc.), but the author discusses Eakins death only two pages before the end of the book, hardly enough time to develop the world's slow acceptance of Eakins' genius.

But then I realized that the book itself is Eakins' revenge. Very few people of even the first rank ever have a biography written about them as fine as this one. This book will be read as the classic text for the next one hundred years and it should be read, merely for its quality, by everyone no matter how slim their interest in American painting.

I have read and enjoyed several of Kirkpatrick's other books (on very different subjects), and was eager to see how he would handle a subject as complicated and controversial as Thomas Eakins. Through his telling of the Eakins story, the reader becomes privy to moments of nearly cosmic dimension as well as deep emotion. It's utterly convincing, lucid and intelligent, highly informative and extremely compelling. His most moving book to date.

When I picked up this very well done bio the little I knew about Eakins was the wonderful scull portraits, the shad fishing pictures and that a vague scandal surrounded his name. Now having read almost 500 pages, I want to know even more and there is a lot more to know.

Kirkpatrick covers the whole life, giving balance to each stage. It is a full book. There is no "filler". The research and background knowledge of the author shine forth on every page. The author shows great restraint in sticking to the known facts, otherwise this would be a 1000+ page book!

For instance, Eakins' fixation with the body, down to using mechanical contraptions on dead animals to demonstrate movement to students is factually presented. It is not sensationalized or psychoanalyzed. Similarly, whether Eakins was oblivious to or had discounted the consequences of asking so many females (again and again) to pose nude in this Victorian age is not discussed. The known instances of these invitations and the resulting alienation of those who said no, and the alienation of the friends and families of those that said yes are covered. With this background we learn the known facts of the tragedy of his niece Ella, and student Lillian, and about accusations regarding his sister Margaret. There are some documented opinions of family members, but the author stays with the known record.

No wonder, the self portrait that adorns the cover shows a tortured man with barely restrained sadness and anger.

It's ironic that the lack of appreciation for Eakin's works served to maintain the integrity of the collection for future generations. It's interesting that due to the nondescript Charles Bregler's collecting and acquiring memorabilia of his beloved teacher, today's researchers have a large collection of personal letters, photos and sketches to work with.

This is a very readable book. It is rich in plates and photographs that illuminate the text. I am ready for another biography to take on the "whys" of this remarkable life.

I find all of Kirkpatrick's books to be great reads. They combine impeccable scholarship with elegant style and profound insight. As I am interested in art, I found this one to be especially powerful -- the first major biography of Eakins that brings this enigmatic man into focus for me. Kirkpatrick has filled in the puzzling gaps in Eakins's life and brought new and unexpected meaning to Eakins's artistic and personal struggles against the conservative art establishment in Philadelphia that denied him recognition in his lifetime.

If you love modern architecture and design, this book is a must-have for your library. The photos are gorgeous (of course), the text is informative, the quality is top notch.

I've got several modern architecture books, and most of the buildings in them are in CA or along the east coast. This is the first book I've seen that includes many buildings from more overlooked parts of the country, such as Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, etc. [In fact, my grandfather was an architect in OK in the 50's, and it was a great surprise to see two of his firm's (Conner and Pojezny) buildings in the book.]

Finally, whenever I'm in the mood to take one of my architecture books off the shelf to look at, it is usually this book I pick up. It's such a fantastic addition to my library that all I'm asking for Xmas is the three-volume follow-up!

This is a great book, do not hesitate to buy it! No better houses photgraphed in one book. This book will blow your mind, you will be bummed that you can't buy houses like these today! Must have for every modernist!

The pictures alone justify the price; the commentary is standard stuff. Top quality coated paper and soft binding, too. Makes you appreciate this famous photographer.

Modernism Rediscovered is not just another book of gorgeous Julius Shulman photographs, but a serious and scholarly attempt to right a wrong done to each of the worthy edifices featured in this book.

To secure an enduring place in the public consciousness a new building must be photographed, and those photographs printed in a variety of publications, both professional and popular. Why do photographs of some buildings get wide exposure and others not? A history-altering book, Modernism Rediscovered explores that conundrum and, at the same time, attempts to redress the omission of these buildings from the public forum.

A fascinating convergence of elements determines which buildings are deemed editorially appealing and which fall through the cracks. Prevailing trends, editorial policy, financial considerations, the photographer's interpretation, and even personal editorial taste all contribute to the selection process and resulting exposure of a building project. Ideally, all these elements coalesce to lend the building and the architect validation and prestige, establishing recognition of the work within the profession and to the general public. As Modernism Rediscovered shows, this has often not been the case.

Now nearly ninety years of age, Julius Shulman granted access to his archives for the first and only time ever to architect Pierluigi Serraino. From this treasure trove of architectural history Serraino selected such underexposed projects as the breathtaking Spencer Residence, a steel cage cantilevered out over the Malibu coastline; the Upton Residence, an Arizona winter retreat combining the lightness of an open glass box anchored by desert stone and concrete; and the C.Y. Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University featuring steeply cascading balconies jutting out of folded concrete side walls.

This book is made of the essence of modernism. All photos are taken during the original time period. It is a great lesson of architecture. To be read after a Frank Lloyd Wright book's and an Art & Craft anthology to discover how tasteless is the architecture of the end of the millenium.

Natalia doesn't delve deep into intellectual arguments here, but she does open many doors leading to rooms of questsions about the state of design education in America and it's seemingly unwavering championing of Modernism. She ties this in with her personal life and how she came to question her modernist education - this might be a turn off for academics seeking pure thought and data.
I'm looking forward to her expanding on the ideas she brings up in this book!

In ordinary hands, modernist design theory might be a dry and dusty topic, but Natalia Ilyin brings it to life and makes it fascinating. She draws you in with beautiful writing, humor, and razor-sharp perceptions; and along the way, she delves deeply into art -- and into life itself. It took courage to stand up to the current mode of design education. As a writer, Ilyin chased the perfect, and she caught it. And she did it with insight and grace.

I LOVED this book. Ilyin weaves together BIG, thought provoking ideas and deeply personal insights (that resonate as much for me as they do for her), and does it in amazingly elegant prose. This book is profound, thoughtful, and beautifully written. AND fun to read! I recommend it highly!

I recommend this book wholeheartedly. I am a theoretical physicist and a writer, so what do I know about design theory and ironic distance? Nothing. But this book is not for designers alone. Rather, it is nothing short of a brilliantly witty and deeply personal guide to life, a heartfelt beacon on the darkling plain "where ignorant armies clash by night" showing us the way to a more joyous and messier life. I came to this book because I'm a fan of Natalia Ilyin's earlier book "Blonde Like Me," which just like this book, is also chock full of fabulous writing and heart-warming insights.

I'm finishing up with "Chasing The Perfect" by Natalia Ilyin and when I'm done, I'm going to read it over again.

In my periodic browsing of the Graphic Arts section at B&N I became a statistic and fell for the cover. Bauhaus period minimalism...always gets me. Hmmmm, words on Modernist design from a nutty professor at RSD? Cool.

Went home, logged on, pressed a button and waited...

She's talking about the influence of the "Modernist" aesthetic on our design sense, on our basic human qualities and the effect on society. The unspoken idiom: the crafty subliminal itching that keeps us moving, to desire the next best thing...the perfect. Here's a hint: "Moo".

Scholarly, eloquent, silly and self deprecating. Heady subjects made tangible, this is my kind of read! So many levels of satisfaction, all feeding the creative spirit. This book is an epiphany for delinquent designers who are questioning conformity...that would be me.

Besides the stated subject of examining why we strive towards ever elusive perfection and the resulting mess...Ilyn uses personal example and anecdote, much of which serendipitously occurs in locales I currently inhabit (NY), as well as the landscapes of mind I travel. Anxiety, doubt, depression, hunger, bewilderment, excitement, joy, anger, nincompoopery. Ilyn wrote about herself, but she wrote for ME! The insights are piled high, personal and potent. Plus there are pictures!

I have been improved for having read: "Chasing The Perfect". I would recommend for anyone with a brain.

This book gives you alot of information. If you are interested in Eichler this is the book to get.

My word! I remember touring Eichler homes in Orange California with my parents. The homes, to me, were spectacular. My parents thought they seemed cheap. They were from the midwest and were used to brick homes built for powerful winters. We moved into another home several blocks from the Eichler Subdivision. I walked past the homes on they way to elementary school and just admired them so much. I guess I will never know what it is like to live in one, but I do know what it was like to tour an Eichler as a model home. What a memory! These are very special homes.

Scott K Dolik

As a Eichler home owner I couldn't wait for this book to arrive and thankfully it was a joy to read and pour over all the original photos in the book. I always knew I owned a special home and now I own a wonderful book that validates that too. Even if you are not a Eichler homeowner, but rather just a fan of mid-century homes this is also a must have for your library as it goes into more then just Joe Eichler and his homes. Enjoy the read!

Note: This book has 250 duotone photographs. The website run by the author is fantastic.

Whether you have an interest in mid-century modern design, Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian architecture or just Eichler...this book is a terrifc buy. While content rich it is still visually appealing and can easily function as a "coffee table" book. This book also serves as a terrific "idea guide" for those in search of small spacce solutions and/or modern landscaping layouts that bring the "outdoors in."

The collaborative editorial effort of Steven Gould Axelrod, Camille Roman, and Thomas Travisano, The New Anthology Of American Poetry: Volume Two, Modernisms 1900-1950 compiles over 600 poems by sixty- five American poets from the era of 1900 to 1950, including T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, and many more. Offering a diversity of styles, and themes, this second volume of The New Anthology Of American Poetry also presents introductions, bibliographies, biographies, up-to-date footnotes and endnotes, and more to assist the reader in both understanding poetry and find more works by a given author. Very highly recommended both as an introduction to early twentieth-century American poetry and as a broad smorgasbord to experience and learn from a panoply of magnificent classic works.

The collaborative editorial effort of Steven Gould Axelrod, Camille Roman, and Thomas Travisano, The New Anthology Of American Poetry: Volume Two, Modernisms 1900-1950 compiles over 600 poems by sixty- five American poets from the era of 1900 to 1950, including T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, and many more. Offering a diversity of styles, and themes, this second volume of The New Anthology Of American Poetry also presents introductions, bibliographies, biographies, up-to-date footnotes and endnotes, and more to assist the reader in both understanding poetry and find more works by a given author. Very highly recommended both as an introduction to early twentieth-century American poetry and as a broad smorgasbord to experience and learn from a panoply of magnificent classic works.

Edited by Steven Gould Axelrod, Thomas Travisano, and Camille Roman, this anthology is a joy. It will make you want to read--and re-read. The editors, not limited by any one canon, worked together to present the range of American poetry of the period. The anthology lays out the richness of the "modernist" American literary heritage with care and love. There are generous selections from a range of the "modernist" writers in addition to surprising selections from immigrant and native american poetry and from popular song. The introductions and notes are thoughtful and deeply intelligent. This anthology promises to be a classic.

This is not an anthology which aims to select and represent the finest examples of American poetry. It is an anthology which aims to ' represent' various groups, including the recognized schools of poetry, but also including ethnic and minority groups. Thus it opens with Native American verse, and closes with verse written from Japanese interred in America during the Second World War. I may be mistaken but it seems to me that it does not represent in a great way the American experience in the Second World War.
This does not mean it does not have generous selections from all the major poets. It does.
It does not mean that it does not contain tens of little known poets whose work may be interesting in one way or another. It does.
It does mean that it mixes up a vast amount of material of different levels. And that it does have a certain political agenda.
What is moving and meaningful as poetry, I would suggest, is some part of this. But the reader should certainly be able to find work here which is moving, inspiring and meaningful poetry.

The previous review by Mr. Freedman is misleading, I believe. I myself am quite a conservative scholar and have little time for what some call "political correctness." (I would note in passing that I never heard anyone on the Left use this silly phrase seriously until a number of useful idiots from the Reagan era took up the mantra in an effort to let bigots feel comfortable fighting back.)

Regardless, I adopted this text for my Modern American Poetry course this fall not because it features the sorts of poetry Mr. Freedman describes. (I have no intention of assigning any of it.) Rather, I adopted it because it gives a much fuller representation of modern American poetry than most of the Norton knockoffs now on the market. For instance, *The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry* doesn't offer a single line by Trumbull Stickney, one of the "Harvard poets" of the genteel tradition, who was greatly admired by the likes of Conrad Aiken. This anthology prints five poems. Moreover, several other "white penis people," in Robert Hughes's phrase, appear here after having been summarily banished from ostensibly conservative anthologies. (Here, "conservative" appears to mean "too damned lazy to read much.")

Yes, this anthology has a political agenda. However, to pretend that others don't is to insult the intelligence of readers. From my perspective (a good liberal who believes, nevertheless, in Milton, Dryden, Pope), this is a genuinely democratic anthology. True, it includes poems by Native Americans, immigrants, and migrant workers. However, it also includes "The Old Rugged Cross," "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", "You're A Grand Old Flag," "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "I'm Just Wild About Harry," and "Goodnight, Irene." The anthologists' agenda, simply put, is to open the canon back up and paint a more genuinely representative portrait of American verse in the modernist era.

In sum, if Mr. Freedman fears the "The Idea of Order at Key West" can't stand the competition, all I can say is that his faith in Wallace Stevens is far weaker than mine.

Herf's book on "Reactionary Modernism" is important because it brings up an intellectual tradition that has been unjustly neglected since the end of WWII. Herf's "paradigm" consists of the right-wing intellectuals, Spengler, Junger, Sombart, Freyer, Schmitt and Heidegger whose main philosophical preoccupation was the impact of technology on modern civilization and the radical shift in human relations that technological progress has caused. Herf locates the peculiarity of this tradition to its love/hate relationship with modern technology. All the aforementioned thinkers realized the tremendous potential of technology but sought to integrate it within the German quasi-romantic GEIST in order to safeguard it from Bolshevism and Americanism. This analysis is complemented by a brilliant chapter on German engineers and their idea about technology and politics. Despite the original contribution of the author to the history and sociology of ideas, his analysis raises some doubts especially in relation to the chapters on Sombart and Spengler. In addition, the author neglects to point to the fact that the "suffocating" state of technology was also pointed out by Marx. Having said that, all credit to Herf who was bold enough to throw light into the "politically incorrect" aspects of German social theory and philosophy. Such attempts are useful and valuable since they put things on perspective shattering one-dimensional views about the current state of civilization. Essential reading for all those who are not afraid to search for the truth even when this is against the current!

Mr. Herf's has written a book that is well researched and fair. Too often, studies dealing with National Socialism and related idealogies lack objectivity, never revealing the full depth and breadth of the thinkers involved. Not so here. The author even points out the mistakes made by many critics in underestimating the thinkers in question.

The chapter on Ernst Junger is the most fascinating. Herf makes Junger's writings clear by placing them in the cultural milieu of the time, something important for understanding most authors, but vital for Junger. While I imagine in hindsight Junger still come off as strange to most of us, he is at least understandable now.

While I can't match the author's experience in research and reading, I remain somewhat skeptical of the extent to which the Nazis adopted reactionary modernism. Was it just a means to an end, to be abandoned once the war was won, in favor of romantic pastoralism. Why the need for lebensraum in the east if not to escape the crowded, "un-nordic" city life?

Also, I wonder if the author's reading of Heidegger isn't a bit off. While Heidegger himself may have prefered the cabin in the woods to the metropolis, I always read his anti-technological views as an attack on a technological, calculating mindset, or way of viewing the world, not as being against the machine neccesarily.

If you are attempting to understand what happened in interwar Germany then this book is worth reading. The main philosophy is that Germany attempted to combine the beauty of modernization with the romanticization of a mythological past. This book helps to explain the foundations of the Nazi regime and why it became so appealing on a mass level. At times the reading gets tough and little on the dry side, but if you can get thought that part of it, you will find the book worth your time.

_Reactionary Modernism_ deals with the way in which certain thinkers on the German Right dealt with the ideals of rationality and technological progress fostered by the Enlightenment. Thus, as distinguished from the traditional Ludditism (i.e. rejection of technology) and anti-technological focus of the traditional right, certain thinkers among the conservative revolutionaries in Germany after the First World War were able to accept the idea of technological progress while rejecting the Enlightenment ideals of rationality. These thinkers distinguished between Technik and Kultur and tried to bring Technik into the realm of Kultur and out of the realm of Zivilisation. Brought together by the experiences of the front (Fronterlebnis) during World War I, the reactionary modernists praised a masculinized ideal of technology. Such reactionary modernist thinkers including Oswald Spengler, Ernst Junger, Carl Schmitt, Martin Heidegger, Werner Sombart, and Moeller van den Bruck were precursors to fascism and national socialism (and in fact many became outright Nazis before the Second World War). _Reactionary Modernism_ focuses upon the thinking of such "conservative revolutionaries" as these thinkers as well as upon the thought of the German engineers and their understanding of capitalism and socialism and various aspects of the Third Reich and Hitler's movement. On one side were the ideals of "blood and soil" and the Volk, opposed to the modern "liberal" ideals of capitalism, communism, and modern finance. The reactionary modernists often were quite antisemitic contrasting the life blood of the German Volk with the more nefarious qualities of "Jewish finance and Bolshevism". While much of the thought of the reactionary modernists fueled the catastrophe that became the Third Reich, reactionary modernism offered a unique perspective which synthesized the aspects of Techniks and Kultur while rejecting the ideals of the Enlightenment.

A review of Jeffrey Herf's "Reactionary Modernism: Technology, culture, and politics in Weimar and the Third Reich." By Michael J. Saporito, MA History candidate, Salem State College. "Reactionary Modernism: Technology, culture, and politics in Weimar and the Third Reich." By Jeffrey Herf. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1984. pp. ix, 251.

Jeffrey Herf's Reactionary Modernism studies the complexities involved in Weimar and Nazi Germany's attempts to simultaneously modernize and antiquate their nation. Herf explores the conservative, anti-democratic groups during Weimar and how they were able to bring together the technological modernization of Germany, while at the same time rejecting almost of the liberal qualities of the Enlightenment. Herf looks to the intellectual, political writings of Juenger, Sombart and Spengler (also, Heidegger, Schmitt and Freyer) to demonstrate how the intellectual community desired to bring Germany into the modern era, while still retaining their distinct German Kultur. Other interesting sources that Herf uses to state his case are German engineering journals and the research of historian Karl-Heinz Ludwig. These sources show how German engineers were brought inline with the reactionary modernist line of thought. Herf successfully demonstrates how the synthesis of technology and German Kultur not only existed, but also thrived. Reactionary Modernism's incorporation of anti-Semitism is detailed if full. Herf explains that this explanation of modern German anti-Semitism is more solid than the version set forth by Adorno and Horkheimer in "The Dialectic of Enlightenment." Anti-democratic groups in Weimar Germany saw the Jew as the reason behind everything that was wrong with Germany. Herf's conclusions show how the Nazis became lost in their ideology and this ended up making technology that was needed for the war effort suffer. The popular myths of German technological supremacy are put to rest. a "Reactionary Modernism" is a valuable source for anyone studying Weimar, the Third Reich or the influence of the Enlightenment in totalitarian governments.