Longman / Prentice Hall

History

Browse available resources for World History:



Modernism
Robin Walz, Associate Professor of HistoryUniversity of Alaska Southeast

ISBN-10: 1405832592
ISBN-13: 9781405832595

Publisher: Longman
Copyright: 2008
Format: Paper; 216 pp
Published: 05/08/2008

Suggested retail price: $17.95
Buy from myPearsonStore

In the early twentieth century, Modernism was a cultural revolution that transformed Western civilization. Pioneering figures cross the fields of art, literature, and music, such as Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Guillaume Apollinaire, F. T. Marinetti, André Breton, Le Corbusier, and Walter Gropius, set entirely new standards for European aesthetics. Beyond individual contributors, radical avant-garde movements, such as Futurism, Constructivism, Dada and Surrealism, turned Modernism into a widespread artistic and intellectual movement. 

In this book, Walz presents the main features and contributions of Modernism, both historical, cultural, intellectual, economic and political, in a clear, readable and jargon-free style.

  • Gives the reader access to the “big picture” of modernism as a historical process.
  • Clearly demonstrates the evolution of modernism from a range of cultural movements.
  • Gives a clear impression of how the modernist movement has influenced practically every aspect of the world we live in today.

Part I: The Shock of the New   (approximately 750 words)

Chapter One: What is Modernism?       (approximately 5,000 words)

Chapter Two: The Birth of Modernism       (approximately 5,000 words)

Part II: The Perceptual Revolution  (approximately 750 words)

Chapter Three: Revolution in Time and Space   (approximately 5,000 words)

Chapter Four: The Early Avant-Garde (approximately 5,000 words)

Part III: Modernism in Motion   (approximately 750 words)

Chapter Five: The Radical Avant-Garde            (approximately 5,000 words)

Chapter Six: Le Tumulte noir  (approximately 5,000 words)

Chapter Seven: The New Sobriety        (approximately 5,000 words)

Part IV: The Great Divide (approximately 750 words)

Chapter Eight: In the Defense of Culture            (approximately 5,000 words)

Chapter Nine: From Modernism to Postmodernism (approximately 5,000 words)

Robin Walz is Associate Professor of History at the University of Alaska Southeast. He has published books and articles on Modernism and aspects of popular culture in the twentieth century.  

So you think you know what makes the world go round? Read about the ideas that revolutionized the twentieth century.

The twentieth century was a period of seismic change on a global scale, witnessing two world wars, the rise and fall of communism, the establishment of a global economy, the beginnings of global warming and a complete reversal in the status of women in large parts of the world.

Many of these changes were brought about thanks to "big ideas" that irrevocably altered the way humans viewed their world. Short Histories of Big Ideas are brief, easy-to-understand introductions to the concepts that shaped the twentieth century. Each volume explains the key aspects of an idea and provides a concise history of its growth and influence on our world perspective.

 

“...a sweeping overview of the varieties of modernism and modernist works that have become part of contemporary culture and consciousness. Moving with ease across genres and national borders, Walz guides us through the aesthetics, social projects, and historical contexts of leading modernists and their works.” Prof Charles Rearick, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

 

Can art change the world?

 

The modernist movements of the early twentieth century launched a cultural revolution without which the multi-media-driven world in which we live today would not have been possible.  Today modernism is enshrined in art galleries and university courses.  Its techniques of abstraction and montage, and its creative impulse to innovate and shock, are the stock-in-trade of commercial advertising, feature films, television and computer-generated graphics.

 

In this concise cultural history, Robin Walz vividly recaptures what was revolutionary about modernism.  He shows how an aesthetic concept, arising from a diversity of cultural movements, from Cubism and Bauhaus to Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, and operating in different ways across the fields of art, literature, music, design and architecture, came to turn intellectual and cultural life and assumptions upside down, first in Europe and then around the world.

 

From the nineteenth century origins of modernism to its postmodern legacies, this book will give the reader access to the big picture of modernism as a dynamic historical process and an unfinished project which still speaks to our times.

 

Robin Walz (Associate Professor of History, University of Alaska) is an intellectual and cultural historian and the author of Pulp Surrealism: Insolent Popular Culture in Early Twentieth-Century Paris (2000).

View a Sample Chapter PDF:

Pearson Higher Education offers special pricing when you choose to package your text with other student resources. If you're interested in creating a cost-saving package for your students, contact your Pearson Higher Education representative for pricing and ordering information.

This title is a member of the Short Histories of Big Ideas, which also contains the titles below . You can also visit the Short Histories of Big Ideas page.

    Having fended off challenges throughout the twentieth century, capitalism has proved itself not only the dominant economic system in the world, but also one of our greatest political and social drivers. But what is it?  This introduction provides a guide to thinking about capitalism both as an ideology and as an economic system.

    For undergraduate students studying 20th century history, political theory, international political economy and globalisation.

  • 0582506093Capitalism
    Bowles
    © 2007 | Longman | Paper; 224 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 0582506093 | ISBN-13: 9780582506091
    Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

    • Colonialism was the formative power used by western European powers (Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain.) This book is a fascinating account of the history of colonialism and its consequences for the 21st century.

  • 1405846305Colonialism
    MacQueen
    © 2008 | Longman | Paper; 224 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 1405846305 | ISBN-13: 9781405846301
    Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

    • This book shows how the modern communist movement emerged out of radical millenarian movements of the Middle Ages and the English Civil War, becoming a mass movement of industrial society, seeking to overturn capitalism and replace it with a society of equality, justice, harmony and co-operation. It traces the growth of modern communism from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century to its position of global power at the end of the Second World War. Why did communism grow so quickly? Why did it spread to turn almost half of the world red by the mid-1970s? What impact did it have upon capitalism and capitalist society?

  • 0582506034Communism
    Sandle
    © 2007 | Longman | Paper; 224 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 0582506034 | ISBN-13: 9780582506039
    Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

    • The fate of the environment was one of the most important issues of the twentieth century and remains a vital problem today, dominating public politics and private interest across the globe and in practice. This is the essential introduction to the debates, the movements, the successes and failures of environmentalism.

     

  • 0582772974Environmentalism
    Peterson del Mar
    © 2007 | Longman | Paper; 232 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 0582772974 | ISBN-13: 9780582772977
    Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

    • Starting with the late eighteenth century, this book explores the history of feminism within a range of countries spanning several continents. The use of a broad, comparative approach highlights the varieties of feminism and the different political and social contexts in which they have developed. Hannam identifies broad trends and changes over time and introduces recent interpretations and approaches. Key themes include the challenge made by feminists to prevailing ideas about a ‘woman’s place’, the notions of sisterhood and solidarity and the relationship between feminism and other social and political reform movements, including nationalist struggles, socialist politics and anti-colonial movements

    Feminism is suitable for undergraduate students studyingfeminism as part of a history, politics or sociology course.

     

  • 0582506085Feminism
    Hannam
    © 2006 | Longman | Paper; 208 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 0582506085 | ISBN-13: 9780582506084
    Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

    • In the early twentieth century, Modernism was a cultural revolution that transformed Western civilization. Pioneering figures cross the fields of art, literature, and music, such as Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Guillaume Apollinaire, F. T. Marinetti, André Breton, Le Corbusier, and Walter Gropius, set entirely new standards for European aesthetics. Beyond individual contributors, radical avant-garde movements, such as Futurism, Constructivism, Dada and Surrealism, turned Modernism into a widespread artistic and intellectual movement. 

    In this book, Walz presents the main features and contributions of Modernism, both historical, cultural, intellectual, economic and political, in a clear, readable and jargon-free style.

  • 1405832592Modernism
    Walz
    © 2008 | Longman | Paper; 216 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 1405832592 | ISBN-13: 9781405832595
    Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

    • In his new critical study of nationalism, R.J.B. Bosworth explores the origins and purpose of the division of human kind into national groupings. The book explores the history of nationalism, arguing that the present is seeing a dangerous growth of what might be called 'national fundamentalism'. Bosworth suggests that nations work best when they possess the ability to criticize their nationalism. They become menacing when they demand the nationalization of people’s empathy, lauding ‘national values’, for example, rather than humane or civilized ones.  Nationalism demonstrates how the globalizing world is seeing a renaissance and adaptation of ideas that were prevalent in the inter-war period, and challenges us to decide whether we should reject nationalist fundamentalism in a civilized world.

    Ideal for undergraduate students taking courses about the history and politics of nationalism.

  • 0582506026Nationalism
    Bosworth
    © 2007 | Longman | Paper; 240 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 0582506026 | ISBN-13: 9780582506022
    Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

    • A brief, accessible, jargon free introduction to one of the most important global issues in the twenty first century.

    Explaining and illustrating modern terrorism, this book focuses both on terrorism within society - terrorist groups - and over society - terror states, and investigates the development and definitions of international terrorism.

    Ideal for students studying twentieth century history or politics, terrorism, international relations and war and peace studies.

  • 0582506107Terrorism
    O'Kane
    © 2007 | Longman | Paper; 232 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 0582506107 | ISBN-13: 9780582506107
    Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

Pearson Higher Education offers special pricing when you choose to package your text with other student resources. If you're interested in creating a cost-saving package for your students contact your Pearson Higher Education representative.


Copyright ©2008 Pearson Education. All rights reserved. Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Permissions