reviewed this book for The Year's Work in English
Studies volThis Cambridge History of Modernism is the first comprehensive history of modernism in the distinguished Cambridge Histories series It identifies a distinctive temperament of 'modernism' within the 'modern' period establishing the circumstances of modernized life as the ground and warrant for an art that becomes 'modernist' by virtue of its demonstrably self conscious involvement in this modern condition Following this sensibility from the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth tracking its manifestations across pan European and transatlantic locations the forty three chapters offer a remarkable combination of breadth and focus Prominent scholars of modernism provide analytical narratives of its literature music visual arts architecture philosophy and science offering circumstantial accounts of its diverse personnel in their many settings These historically informed readings offer definitive accounts of the major work of twentieth century cultural history and provide a new cornerstone for the study of modernism in the current century.