The Devil in Babylon: Fear of Progress and the Birth of Modern Life

by Allan Levine

What should the modern world look like? Who should be its leaders? And what values should it embrace? We have never wrestled over these questions more than in the first three decades of the twentieth century.

Allan Levine’s newest book chronicles this wide-ranging emotional and moral conflict by focusing on the people who lived through this turbulent an array of personalities – traditionalists as well as progressives, the powerful and the powerless – who, for better or worse, shaped the contours ofcontemporary North American society. Among them were anarchist Emma Goldman, prohibitionist and creationist William Jennings Bryan, women’s rights campaigner Nellie McClung, and gangster Al Capone.

Their personal experiences are set against the heated debate about the impact of immigration, the role of women, the conflict between science and religion, the influence of Hollywood, and the changing attitudes about sex – issues that preoccupied, and even consumed, North Americans of all classes.

Genres: History

448 pages, Hardcover

First published April 12, 2005

About the author

Allan Levine was born in Winnipeg in 1956 and received a Ph.D. in history from the University of Toronto in 1985. He is the author of 10 non-fiction books that have examined a wide-range of political, social and economic issues. He has delved into Canadian, European, American and Jewish history. He has also published five historical mystery novels, including Evil of the Age and four books featuring Sam Klein. He has been freelancing articles and reviews for more than 30 years. He frequently contributes to the National Post and for the past six years has been writing a column for the Winnipeg Free Press, Now & Then, which looks at the history behind current events. In all of his work, he aims to bring the past alive and reflect on history's lessons.