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1913: The Year Before the Storm - Florian Illies, Shaun Whiteside, Jamie Lee Searle
1913: The Year Before the Storm
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3.63 20
Just before one of its darkest moments came the twentieth century’s most exciting year . . .It was the year Henry Ford first put a conveyer belt in his car factory, and the year Louis Armstrong first picked up a trumpet. It was the year Charlie Chaplin signed his first movie contract, and Coco... show more
Just before one of its darkest moments came the twentieth century’s most exciting year . . .It was the year Henry Ford first put a conveyer belt in his car factory, and the year Louis Armstrong first picked up a trumpet. It was the year Charlie Chaplin signed his first movie contract, and Coco Chanel and Prada opened their first dress shops. It was the year Proust began his opus, Stravinsky wrote The Rite of Spring, and the first Armory Show in New York introduced the world to Picasso and the world of abstract art. It was the year the recreational drug now known as ecstasy was invented.It was 1913, the year before the world plunged into the catastrophic darkness of World War I.In a witty yet moving narrative that progresses month by month through the year, and is interspersed with numerous photos and documentary artifacts (such as Kafka’s love letters), Florian Illies ignores the conventions of the stodgy tome so common in “one year” histories. Forefronting cultural matters as much as politics, he delivers a charming and riveting tale of a world full of hope and unlimited possibility, peopled with amazing characters and radical politics, bristling with new art and new technology . . . even as ominous storm clouds began to gather.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN: 9781612193519 (161219351X)
Publisher: Melville House
Pages no: 272
Edition language: English
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Community Reviews
Ellinor's Litventures
Ellinor's Litventures rated it
5.0 A special history book - but not for everyone
1913 is a history book unlike every other one I ever read. As the title says it is about the year 1913. There is a chapter for each month but the history is not told as one would except it, relating political events and stating how they lead to other events, in this the Great War. 1913 uses a differ...
Bettie's Books
Bettie's Books rated it
4.5 1913
bookshelves: published-2013, summer-2013, radio-4, fradio, nonfiction, translation Read from July 21 to 26, 2013 Reblogged on the back of Twilight of the Belle Epoque: BBC BLURB: In Paris, Proust sets out in search of lost time in a sound-proofed study, Stravinsky creates musical mayhem, and ...
Beamis12
Beamis12 rated it
3.5 1913
Quite a clever construct, using short narratives or biographical information. the author pieces together the world using notable personages as a guide to the world in the year before the Great War was fought. So many interesting tidbits, including the Lutz, the skater jump, this was apparently the...
MEslaymaker
MEslaymaker rated it
Such an endearingly irreverent yet empathic account, and what a year! I just love this book and hope you do too. The following random excerpts should give you the gist. (February) And so the capital of the modern age anno 1913 is Vienna. Its star players are Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler, Egon Sc...
Christine's Book Adventures
Christine's Book Adventures rated it
2.0
I think that would have been better in paper than audio. The switch of characters and different names and places all the time was hard to follow. I did enjoy to have an insight in the different people's lives though. I think I will dig up more to read of these people... Picasso, Braque, the Mona Lis...
Other editions (7)
Books by Shaun Whiteside
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