Today, 1913 is inevitably viewed through the lens of 1914: as the
last year before a war that would shatter the global economic order
and tear Europe apart, undermining its global pre-eminence. Our
perspectives narrowed by hindsight, the world of that year is
reduced to its most frivolous features--last summers in grand
aristocratic residences--or its most destructive ones: the
unresolved rivalries of the great European powers, the fear of
revolution, violence in the Balkans.
In this illuminating history, Charles Emmerson liberates the world
of 1913 from this "prelude to war" narrative, and explores it as it
was, in all its richness and complexity. Traveling from Europe's
capitals, then at the height of their global reach, to the emerging
metropolises of Canada and the United States, the imperial cities
of Asia and Africa, and the boomtowns of Australia and South
America, he provides a panoramic view of a world crackling with
possibilities, its future still undecided, its outlook still open.
The world in 1913 was more modern than we remember, more similar to
our own times than we expect, more globalized than ever before. The
Gold Standard underpinned global flows of goods and money, while
mass migration reshaped the world's human geography. Steamships and
sub-sea cables encircled the earth, along with new technologies and
new ideas. Ford's first assembly line cranked to life in 1913 in
Detroit. The Woolworth Building went up in New York. While Mexico
was in the midst of bloody revolution, Winnipeg and Buenos Aires
boomed. An era of petro-geopolitics opened in Iran. China appeared
to be awaking from its imperial slumber. Paris celebrated itself as
the city of light--Berlin as the city of electricity.
Full of fascinating characters, stories, and insights, "1913: In
Search of the World before the Great War" brings a lost world
vividly back to life, with provocative implications for how we
understand our past and how we think about our future.
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