Bedford Public Library

A world on edge, the end of the Great War and the dawn of a new age, Daniel Schönpflug ; translated by Jefferson Chase

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages [281]-293) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

A world on edge

bibliography

1021807163

Daniel Schönpflug ; translated by Jefferson Chase

the end of the Great War and the dawn of a new age

November 1918. The Great War has left Europe in ruins, but with the end of hostilities, a radical new start seems not only possible, but essential, even unavoidable. Unorthodox ideas light up the age: new politics, new societies, new art and culture, new thinking. The struggle to determine the future has begun. Sculptor Käthe Kollwitz, whose son died in the war, is translating sorrow and loss into art. Captain Harry Truman is running a men's haberdashery in Kansas City, hardly expecting he will soon go bankrupt--and then become president of the United States. Moina Michael is about to invent the "remembrance poppy," a symbol of sacrifice that will stand for generations to come. Meanwhile Virginia Woolf is questioning whether that sacrifice was worth it, and George Grosz is so revolted by the violence on the streets of Berlin that he decides everything is meaningless. For rulers and revolutionaries, a world of power and privilege is dying--while for others, a dream of overthrowing democracy is being born. With novelistic virtuosity, Daniel Schönpflug describes this watershed time as it was experienced on the ground--open-ended, unfathomable, its outcome unclear. Combining a multitude of acutely observed details, Schönpflug shows us a world suspended between enthusiasm and disappointment, in which the window of opportunity was suddenly open, only to quickly close shut again

Prologue -- The beginning of the end -- A day and an hour -- Revolutions -- Dreamland -- A deceptive peace -- The end of beginning -- Epilogue: the tail of the comet