Description

Book Synopsis
Modernism and pessimism seem to go hand in hand. What are the sources of the historical pessimism we see in the legions of writers and thinkers over the past three centuries who saw modern civilization as degenerate and despicable, happily marching to its own doom? Why did so many educated and intelligent people despise the innovations that were the work of their contemporaries? This book focuses on English and Polish thought during the 19th and early 20th centuries, a time of relative political stability and great success in science and industry, when many nevertheless voiced concern that Europe is moving in the wrong direction, to its own destruction. After WWI, these warnings became even more dire and have left their mark on the European culture of our times.

Table of Contents
Contents: Degeneration – Degenerate – Modernity – Decline of civilisation – Darwinism – Crisis – Victorian Era – Edwardian Era – Fin de Siècle – Turn of the century – City on trial – Industrial cities – Progress – Eugenics – Post-Enlightenment – Science Fiction – Mechanical Age – Romanticism – Railways – Steam Age – The West.

A Degenerate World

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    A Hardback by Elena Rozbicka, Tristan Korecki, Jerzy Jedlicki

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      Book details

      Publisher Peter Lang AG
      Published 10 May 2016
      ISBN-13 9783631642870
      978-3631642870
      ISBN-10 3631642873

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      Modernism and pessimism seem to go hand in hand. What are the sources of the historical pessimism we see in the legions of writers and thinkers over the past three centuries who saw modern civilization as degenerate and despicable, happily marching to its own doom? Why did so many educated and intelligent people despise the innovations that were the work of their contemporaries? This book focuses on English and Polish thought during the 19th and early 20th centuries, a time of relative political stability and great success in science and industry, when many nevertheless voiced concern that Europe is moving in the wrong direction, to its own destruction. After WWI, these warnings became even more dire and have left their mark on the European culture of our times.

      Table of Contents
      Contents: Degeneration – Degenerate – Modernity – Decline of civilisation – Darwinism – Crisis – Victorian Era – Edwardian Era – Fin de Siècle – Turn of the century – City on trial – Industrial cities – Progress – Eugenics – Post-Enlightenment – Science Fiction – Mechanical Age – Romanticism – Railways – Steam Age – The West.

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