When the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious
faith, patriotism and the belief in human progress had all been
called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides.
Shell shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer
recognized: the old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of
machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and
terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief.
In Fracture, critically acclaimed historian Philipp Blom argues
that in the aftermath of the First World War, citizens of the West
directed their energies inwards, launching into hedonistic,
aesthetic and intellectual adventures of self-discovery. It was a
period of both bitter disillusionment and visionary progress. From
Surrealism to Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West; from Fritz
Lang's Metropolis to theoretical physics, and from Art Deco to Jazz
and the Charleston dance, artists, scientists and philosophers
grappled with the question of how to live and what to believe in a
broken age. Morbid symptoms emerged simultaneously from the decay
of the First World War: progress and innovation were everywhere met
with increasing racism and xenophobia. America closed its borders
to European refugees and turned away from the desperate poverty
caused by the Great Depression. On both sides of the Atlantic,
disenchanted voters flocked to Communism and fascism, forming
political parties based on violence and revenge that presaged the
horror of a new World War. Vividly recreating this era of
unparalleled ambition, artistry and innovation, Blom captures the
seismic shifts that defined the interwar period and continue to
shape our world today.
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