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In the early 1870s, mathematicians like Cantor and Dedekind discovered the set and divided the mathematical continuum; in 1886, Georges Seurat debuted his visionary masterpiece, "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte"; by the end of 1900, Hugo de Vries had discovered the gene, Max Planck had laid claim to the quantum, and Sigmund Freud had laid bare the unconscious workings of dreams. Throughout the worlds of art and ideas, of science and philosophy, Modernism was dawning, and with it a new mode of conceptualization. With astounding range and scholarly command, William Everdell constructs a lively and accessible history of nascent Modernism -- narrating portraits of genius, profiling intellectual breakthroughs, and richly evoking the fin-de-siecle atmosphere of Paris, Vienna, St. Louis, and St. Petersburg. He follows Picasso to the Cabaret des Assassins, discourses with Ernst Mach on the contingency of scientific law, and takes in the riotous premiere of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring'. But how are we to define the inception of an era predicated upon such far-flung and radically disparate innovations? Everdell is careful not to insist on the creative interrelation of these events. Instead, what for him unites such germinally modernist achievements is a profound conceptual insight: that the objects of our knowledge are - contrary to the evolutionary seamlessness of nineteenth-century thought -- discrete, atomistic, and discontinuous. The gray matter was found to be made out of neurons, poems out of disjunctive images, and paintings out of dots of color, all by innovators whose worlds were just beginning to align. Theoretically sophisticated yet marvelously entertaining, "TheFirst Moderns" offers an invigorating look at the unfolding of an age.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In a time of vulgar relativism and particularism,in which "postmodernist" ideas increasingly influence not only intellectual but also popular culture, Everdell brings us back to a consideration of the period to which postmodernism putatively reacts -- i.e., modernism. Much, of course, has been written about modernism, but Everdell's ideas are much more comprehensive and solidly argued than almost any others I have read. Intellectual history is a daring (and sometimes dangerous) enterprise, but one that is critical for understanding what we think and why. Everdell's book is a model of the genre -- learned, thoughtful, innovative, witty, and clear.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Everdell does a competent job of arranging what is essentially a series of essays on a variety of Modernist thinkers. Unfortunately, I believe his book is too specific for the general reader and does too little with covered ground to interest the scholar. By focusing on the person rather than the subject, the book fails to say much when taken as a whole. Everdell gets bogged in the minutia of each thinkers' work without really exploring the connections between them and this prevents him from breaking new ground on the broader historical understanding of Modernism. In the end, a lamentable flaw but not a fatal one and for the reader somewhere between generalist and scholar, this book should offer something of interest.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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7 reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
overdue survey of intellectual history
13 May 2003
Format:Paperback
Books like these are hard to find. Everdell has attempted something ambitious and difficult: to situate some of the most influential and fascinating cultural figures of modernism in vivid historical context. The result is a rich tapestry whose warp and woof includes innovators from both the arts and sciences. A book which treated only one or the other would have been interesting in its own right, but Everdell went for broke by insisting that the modernist climate is best understood by showing the wide-spread cultural cross-pollination characteristic of the time.
This book is one of the few gems of intellectual history that tries and succeeds in recreating the cultural atmosphere at the turn of the century. Some vignettes here are naturally better than others (the chapter on Strindberg is not to be missed!), but the thesis that ties them all together is strong and sound, so the book works as a brilliant study of the modernist impulse.
At a time when boundaries between academic disciplines are starting to give way to new and exciting discourses, Everdell's book proves to be a timely contribution to this budding trend.
Everdell loves what he studies and it shows.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
A comprehensive accomplishment
14 Oct 2002
Format:Paperback
As a "general reader" I have to take issue with the reviewer from Cambridge. The advantage of a book is that, where discussion gets too particular or specialized, one may content oneself with the general idea--in this case, without penalty. Everdell's grasp of fields as diverse as mathematics and painting may try the expertise of all but a few specialists, but his unifying theses will not. And this is more than a work of "intellectual" history: the author deals with the practices and discoveries of various forms or art and science and avoids the trap of their a priori reduction to intellectual principles.
15 of 20 people found the following review helpful
A book for our time--excellent.
1 Oct 1998
Format:Paperback
In a time of vulgar relativism and particularism,in which "postmodernist" ideas increasingly influence not only intellectual but also popular culture, Everdell brings us back to a consideration of the period to which postmodernism putatively reacts -- i.e., modernism. Much, of course, has been written about modernism, but Everdell's ideas are much more comprehensive and solidly argued than almost any others I have read. Intellectual history is a daring (and sometimes dangerous) enterprise, but one that is critical for understanding what we think and why. Everdell's book is a model of the genre -- learned, thoughtful, innovative, witty, and clear.
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