Fracture: Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938

by Philipp Blom

At the end of the First World War, the West was traumatized, impoverished, and facing a geopolitically uncertain future.

In "Fracture: Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938", critically acclaimed historian Philipp Blom argues that, amid this uncertainty, Europeans and Americans directed their energies inwards toward aesthetic and intellectual self-discovery. Europe produced strange new brands of art, science, and spirituality—such as Surrealism and Art Deco—while flocking to exciting but dangerous new ideologies including communism and fascism. In America, the Harlem Renaissance marked the flourishing of black culture, and flappers sparked new thinking about the place of women in society. Yet undercurrents of racial and class conflict were pronounced, fueled by immigration quotas and the poverty of the Dust Bowl.

"Fracture: Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938" is a sweeping evocation of the tumultuous interwar period, and the sublime cultural movements and terrifying ideologies it spawned.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Art, Politics, Cultural, European History, 20th Century

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Philipp Blom is a German novelist who currently lives and works in Vienna, Austria. He is best known for his novel, The Simmons Papers (1995). His 2007 novel, Luxor has not yet been translated into English. He is a professional historian who studied at Vienna and Oxford with a focus on eighteenth-century intellectual history. His academic works include: To Have and to Hold: An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting; Encyclopédie, and The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West, 1900-1914. He is also the author of The Wines of Austria.

Reviews

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philipp Blom uses the same technique as in his The Vertigo Years: Europe 1900-1914 - every year a different story from that year, and not always the most obvious. 1919 is not devoted to the Versailles Treaty, and 1929 is not the story of "Wall St. Lays an Egg."

1918: Shell Shock - the effects of mechanized war
1919: Fascist prelude; the rise of the new Klan and the "Big Red Scare" in America
1920: Prohibition and the law of unintended consequences; the "Lost Generation" and jazz conquers Europe
1921: Consolidation of the Communist revolution in the Soviet Union; wave of general strikes from Germany to West Virginia
1922: Harlem Renaissance: to be young, gifted, and the "new Negro"
1923: The new physics: the expanding universe and the quantum atom
1924: Stop making sense: Dada and Surrealism.
1925: Evolution on trial; the rise of "social Darwinism."
1926: Utopia and the machine: Metropolis, Taylorism, Bauhaus, and Brave New World.
1927: Countries on the verge of a nervous breakdown: Austria and France
1928: Flaming Youth: Flappers and Bright Young Things
1929: As a shining (socialist) city on a hill: the Soviet Union
1930: Crises and Culture: Weimar Germany
1931: America closes the Open Door (eastern and southern Europeans not wanted); Mussolini's new Roman Empire.
1932: Stalin weaponizes famine.
1933: The Nazi "pogrom on the intellect."
1934: Britain on the Dole.
1935: Unwanted Refuguees: Okies in California, German Jews in Western Europe.
1936: The Propaganda Olympics: Berlin 1936
1937: Proxy-war in Spain; purges in the Soviet Union
1938: Anchluss and aftermath.

[Dave Schoettinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Socrates is purported to have said that the unexamined life was not worth living. Professor Blom suggests that the few who were examining life after WWI all got various wrong answers. The result was a conflict between bad ideologies and World War II. Blom is not the first to state that the world wars were really one conflict separated by a 21 year breather and with those wars fading in the distance they have become like two rails of the railroad coming together.

His approach to this book differs from the standard history in that he does not claim to cover everything worth knowing that happened in the period, but rather each chapter focuses on a particular year and on an event or trend of that year. The result is more comprehensive than you might at first think and makes the book very readable.

Spoiler Alert: If you are a person who believes that the market economy is the only credible basis for society and gateway to the future, you may want to skip the last chapter.

[Xander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fracture: Life and Culture in the West 1918-1938 (2014) is German historian Philipp Blom's sequel to his earlier The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West 1900-1914 (2008).

Blom's first work was a very interesting historical work, in which he used mostly unknown narratives, life stories and historical events, to paint a picture of the period involved. Its mechanisms, its dynamics, its cultural and political developments. Through this means, Blom was able to offer us modern readers a scent of what it was like to be alive during those years. This was its major strength, since Blom's work isn't the typical historical scholarship. I've always had a love and hate relationship with the dry, abstract prose of scholarship, since my main interest in history is exactly what Blom offers: to place myself in earlier times and places and to be able to imagine events from a contemporary spectator's point of view.

With Fracture, Blom repeats his earlier trick and is able to offer us yet again an amazing roller coaster ride through the period 1918-1938. Problem is, now he has to cover more years, so more historical material, more stories, more substance. This leads to a book that is too long, too repetitive and in general slightly off-balance, compared to The Vertigo Years.

Admittedly, the reading experience was pretty amazing. I can't remember when was the last time I've read two books so quickly and enjoyed a book so much. For this, I am thankful to Blom and admire his intellect and creative efforts.

Although the book consists of collections of stories and events, Blom does offer his analysis and also writes up general histories of these times, connecting the said events with the more broader picture. It is Blom's general framework with which I have some problems.

According to him, the period 1918-1929 consists of reactions to World War I, influenced along the way with political and economic crises (e.g. the hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic in 1923 and the rise of fascism in Italy). During those years, people responded in general in either of two ways: sentimentality or aggression. Some developed a mythical, nostalgic view of the golden age prior to the world war, while others fled into ideologies to explain the happening of the world war (often accusing other groups as causes of the misery).

In the 1920's, as the economy was slightly improving, there was an opportunity of squashing old conflicts and drawing up a new future in which old divisions would be covered up.

But then the Wall Street crash happened in 1929, giving rise (mostly due to bad policy and failed government interventions) to the Great Depression. Now, old dividing lines deepened and radicalized, giving rise to a whole complex of battles: old versus young, poor versus rich, city versus countryside, between ideology, and between classes.

For Blom, the period 1918-1928 is 'post-war' while the period 1929-1938 is 'pre-war', meaning that from 1929 a new war became inevitable. And with the Nazi takeover in Germany in 1933 the future looked settled. This is a huge difference when compared with the period 1900-1914, since (according to Blom) during this period, up to June 1914, there was no inevitability or even apprehension of a war. World War I just happened, while World War II was in the making for almost a decade before it started.

I'm no historian but I think this is a claim which has a big kernel of truth to it. Especially when you add the Stalin takeover in the USSR and the military aggression which communism was already expressing inwardly (e.g. the Holodomor, the Great Purge) and already killing off millions of innocent people in its wake.

Blom uses the final chapter to offer us his own perception on historical determinism, the role of the Enlightenment in the horrors of the twentieth century, the nature of historical explanation, etc. In short, a mix of misapprehension, incompetence, and luck explains historical developments better than any clear logical explanation.

In its final paragraphs, Blom draws parallels between the period 1900-1938 and modern times. He rejects the all too easy comparisons, but he does note one important one: as in 1918 and 1929, 2008 confronted us with the same (age old) question: How can I live in a world with values and thoughts that suddenly have lost all their meaning?

According to Blom, the tendency is always to cling to religion, or develop new ones. Fascism, communism and neoliberalism are all religious answers to this human, all too human question to life. The 'homo economicus' is simply another simplification and rationalization of a much more layered and complex reality. Neoliberalism, just like fascism and communism before it, creates its own cult, rituals, priests and prophets.

A refusal to solve the problems of a historical period leads necessarily to political ideologies. After 2008, we had (have?) a chance to solve these problems and to create a better world without (too much) division. Blom reminds us of the youth movements of the 1920's which fled into escapism and hedonism, only to lose themselves in drugs and ecstasy and allowing ideologies to take over society. He doesn't tell us if he thinks this has happened again in the wake of the 2008 global economic crisis, but knowing Blom and his pessimistic temperament, I have a guess to which side his answer would tend to go...

Blom is to be admired for having written two fabulous books and allowing us to re-live those times and places through the eyes of contemporaries. Next to that, he has simply offered us two very enjoyable and accessible books on a very interesting and intriguing historical period. Apart from this, I can follow most of his normative/ideological choices and stances to a certain degree. It's just that I don't agree with his general stance on politics and life, but luckily this only shows in the final pages of a book covering 500+ pages, so I'll just forget this and remember the fun I've had reading his two books. Definitely a recommendation!

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am reading this book as part of my World War One anniversary project.

Philipp Blom asks the central question that arose for so many everyday people after WWI. “What values were there left to live for?” Blom is thorough in documenting the many attempts to answer the question. He discusses some stories of the day such as the stirrings of fascism by Italian poet D’Annunzio. H.G. Well’s scathing review of Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis. He discusses the various forms of art and the prominent artists of the time period. Blom reviews the activism of America’s eugenics enthusiasts. He also discussed the increase of totalitarian regimes, Dadaism, the lost generation and an excellent section on Jazz and the Blues.

Blom discusses the hopeless and lost feelings of the time and the dread, paranoia and anger that pervaded everything. The book is well written and brings a refreshing clarity to uncertain times of any era including our own. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is slightly long at 17 hours Ralph Lister narrated the book.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A first-rate examination of Europe (and occasionally the United States) between the wars. Blom illuminates the larger themes of Western values by examining a host of cultural and political phenomena, ranging from the failures of Bolshevism to Clara Bow. He is also clear about the fact that most of the trends we associate as after-effects of the First World War were in play before the conflict began. The terrible history of the first half of the twentieth century becomes more explicable after reading this essential work.

Highly recommend.

[Gabe Steller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this on the strength of Phil Blom's The Vertigo Years, and though they mostly are just satisfying general overviews of the history and culture of their periods,I really liked both of them for how they communicated the psychological feeling of what it meant to live through those time periods, in ways that feel very similar to "Now-times". The Vertigo Years was relatable in terms of rapidly advancing technology , changing social relations, and a general feeling of huge forces changing societies in ways that cant yet be seen, whereas Fracture was was all about how it felt to have faith in bedrock ideas and institutions be totally discredited. That feeling of disillusionment and betrayal I feel like is totally in the air today as well, in the wake of the forever wars, the botched response to the financial crash, and all the bullshit with the internet.

The Epilogue had great line about what its like today, now that the ideology of capitalism and markets has proven bankrupt, and Climate change looms:
"During the Interwar years many people dreamed of a better future; today we are trying to prevent this future from materializing because we have lost all hope that change may be fore good, that we can transform our societies in the image of a common good. Our Future has essentially become a threat, and all we want is to live in a present that never ends."

[Álvaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 y poco que esta vez redondeo a 3.

Me ha parecido inferior a The Vertigo Years: Europe 1900-1914 , ya que, aunque siguiendo el mismo esquema de historias pequeñas y medianas para crear el tapiz de la Gran Historia (así con mayúsculas), creo que las historias de su primer libro servían mejor para la metáfora de los tiempos o el inicio de silogismos que el autor quería que siguieramos para hacernos a la idea de lo que en aquel supusieron los años anteriores a las WWI y en éste a la WWII.

En este libro hay historias mucho más anecdóticas, casi notas al pie de página, que no aportan demasiado para entender ni los años 20, y mucho menos los años 30. Se hace un tratamiento muy pop del ascenso de los fascismos, y, sorprendentemente para mí, se cargan mucho más las tintas contra la Union Sovietica que contra Mussolini (al que se le pinta poco más que de bon vivant priapico), o Hitler y los Nazis (el capitulo fuerte al respecto habla sobre la quema de libros, poco o nada dice del odio hacia el distinto que acabría con la quema de personas, algo que parece que al autor le resulta mucho menos importante que los libros, y que el autor va soslayando todo el libro).

Este volumen está polítucamente más cargado que el primero; excepto en el epílogo, las crisis economicas del periodo son debidas casi a sucesos mágicos, y se pasa de puntillas, por el 29, por la hiperinflacion en Weimar, etc., mientras que, eso sí, el autor se recrea en oscuros episodios de la barbarie Stalinista.

En cualquier caso es un libro apreciable con capítulos muy buenos -en este caso los menos- hablando de temas poco conocidos para mí, sobre todo los relativos a ese periodo en los USA.

[Veerle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Behoorlijke tour de force om het interbellum in een book te schetsen. Jaar per jaar bekijkt Blom op een originele manier een hoop tendensen, die aantonen dat die tussenoorlogse jaren geen breuk maar een verderzetting zijn van alles ervoor.

Het gaat van jazz over politiek tot film en theater. Het voelt nooit zwaar hoewel er best heavy topics aan bod komen. Knap!

Het is alleen wat scary om een aantal maatschappelijke tendensen die zich vandaag aftekenen terug te zien. De mens verandert nooit blijkbaar.

[Wolfgang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wieder ein furioses Geschichtskaleidoskop von Philipp Blom, sozusagen Teil 2 nach dem absolut nicht zu toppenden "Der taumelnde Kontinent" über die Jahre 1900-1914.

Wieder benutzt Blom die aus dem Vorgängerband bekannte Technik, jedes einzelne Jahr als Ankerpunkt für einen anderen Blickwinkel auf die Zwischenkriegszeit zu nehmen. Und wieder geht es nicht darum, Historie zeitlinear nachzuerzählen, sondern jeweils das Thema um das gegebene Jahr herum auszubreiten. Es geht auch wieder viel mehr um Kultur, Technik, Wirtschaft als um die bekannten politischen Ereignisse und hat zum Effekt, dass der Leser viel mehr den Eindruck des alltäglichen Lebens bekommt und sich in die Zeit hineinversetzt, und letztlich feststellt, das 2017 nicht so weit entfernt von den 20er, 30er Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts ist, wie man gemeinhin denkt.

Leider bleibt dieser 2. Band in Punkto Intensität und Faszination ziemlich deutlich hinter dem 1. Band zurück. Meiner Meinung nach liegt das an der zu grossen Ambition von Philipp Blom, möglichst viele Gedanken, Überlegungen, Geschehnisse und Personen auf die Seiten zu packen. So wird der Effekt sehr fraktal, Figuren, Namen und Orte kommen und gehen oft scheinbar ohne tiefere Motivation und man fragt sich noch gerade, warum Person X wichtig ist und da ist sie auch schon wieder verschwunden.

Insgesamt ist das Buch aber schon sehr wertvoll, eben weil man so viel mehr über die geschilderte Zeit aus Sicht der Zeitgenossen erfährt als in jedem andern Geschichtsbuch.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik heb al tientallen boeken gerecenseerd maar deze is volgens mij één van de moeilijkste tot nu toe. Het boek is als een jazz plaat, met onvoorspelbare twists and turns die het ritme op slag veranderen en andere tonen uitschallen, je weet het gewoon niet wat er zal komen. De leeservaring was ongelooflijk, het is zelden dat het ritme van het boek het ritme van de tijden en thema evenaart, wat ook de bedoeling is van het boek, het ritme van de tijd 1919 tot 1938 weergeven, om de lezer de kakafonie van de periode te laten ervaren.

Kakafonie, dat vat het boek en de tijd goed samen, van shelshock slachtoffers naar avant garde kunst, swinging jazz tijdens de drooglegging naar het bloedbaden in Krondstadt en Virginia's coal towns stakingen, Hubble theorie over de ruimte, the harlem renaissance, profilatie van homoseksualiteit (met te weinig aandacht voor vrouwen door Blom), bijbel fundamentalisme, Spengles untergang des abenlandes, straatgevechten tussen links en rechts in Oostenrijk, Mussolini, antisemitisme, architecturale omwentelingen (skyscrapers en reuze fabrieken), Metropolis, Holodomor, de beurscrash, the great dust storms en de beschimpte okie farmers, de Nazi olympische spelen, de Spaanse burgeroorlog en de cumulatie van al die bonkende indrukken het begin van wereld oorlog 2. Het doet je hoofd spinnen dat kan ik je garanderen maar toch rijst de vraag of er niet zaken zijn weggelaten. Ik miste persoonlijk de opmars van spiritisme en occulte met name Aleister Crowley, dit soort occulte bewegingen passen perfect in het thema van het boek hoe het interbellum niet echt nieuwe zaken bracht maar vooral intenser maakte wat al voor 1914 bestond en pas na 1918 kon de zekerheden van mensen breken en tezelfdertijd een wanhopige optie was voor mensen die iets zochten voor houvast. Het had een culturele component in de vorm van bijeenkomsten en magazines met auteurs als Robert E. Howard en H.P. Lovecraft die respectievelijk inspeelden op de wens voor een terugkeer naar zuivere tijden met een masculiene held die de decadentie doorbreekt en anderzijds de gruwel teweeggebracht door het besef hoe nietig de mens is in het licht en duister van de kosmos (thema's die heel prominent naar voren komen in dit narratief van Blom). Beide auteurs hadden een leven dat verschillende aspecten van de onzekerheden van het interbellum omschrijft die ik iedereen kan aanraden op te zoeken en te plaatsen in het narratief van "alleen de wolken".

Het boek heeft een dubbele boodschap in verband met de titel. Enerzijds is de titel een verwijzing naar een lijn in het boek waar Philipp Blom alludeert dat voor een mens in die periode schijnbaar alleen de wolken hetzelfde bleven terwijl alles om hen heen sneller en sneller veranderde met enkel de wolken die nog waren zoals vroeger voor 1914. Anderzijds verwijst de titel naar de houding van velen of nu totalitaire ideologie, uitbundig nachtleven of hen die vasthielden aan relieken van het verleden was allen leefden in een wolk van hun eigen keuze met de redelijkheid en empathie, het begrip voor anderen (ofwel down to earth gedrag) steeds minder relevant werd en alleen de wolken het tempo bepaalden. Het is duidelijk ook wie volgens Blom de helden zijn in deze periode, diegene die niet naar de wolken opstegen. Dit omvat een hele resem figuren van burgerij en arbeiders die niet toegaven aan de verlokkingen, afro amerikaanse auteurs die tegen het raciale systeem verzet boden, professoren die een stil ethisch verzet aanhielden tegen Mussolini, maar ook linkse revolutionairen in Rusland (Krondstadt) en Spanje (anarchisten) die voor concrete zaken opkwamen en niet de mensheid wouden kneden naar een patroon bedacht vanop wolken (al miste ik wel in het hoofdstuk over Oekraïne de revolutionairen van Nestor Makhno die pasten in dit patroon). Ik vraag mij ergens dan wel af, wat volgens Philippe Blom een goede uitkomst was geweest met deze figuren die verzet boden? Zou het een samenleving op verschillende snelheden zijn geweest? Een samenleving waar bv anarchisten, betrokken burgerij, dichter arbeiders en professoren op hun eigen manier de mens als individu zouden verdedigen? In ieder geval in het einde maakt Phillipe Blom wel de link met het hedendaagse en alhoewel hij onderstreept dat in 2008 de crisis wel erg was en het niet de verwoestende effecten had als die van 1929 onderstreept hij dat we niet helemaal op ons gemak moeten blijven en in onze wolken vertoeven.

Zoals je kan merken, het boek is enorm in haar aspiratie en alhoewel ik wel degelijk vindt dat er bepaalde stukken ontbreken, kan ik niet zeggen dat dit er heel veel zijn. In tegendeel het boek nodigt uit om andere aspecten en samenlevingen van de tijd te analyseren met dit paradigma van de wolken en toenemende kakafonie in het achterhoofd. Dat gezegd zijnde, behalve het idee dat wat de verwarring veroorzaakte al eerder bestond en pas na de eerste wereldoorlog in volle kracht de samenleving binnentrad, bied het boek weinig nieuws. De beurscrash van 1929 krijgt de grote vinger toegewezen voor het mogelijk maken van nazisme en dus de tweede wereldoorlog met het idee van totalitarisme als politieke religie. Het beeld blijft tevens heel strak gericht op Europa en de VS met weinig erkenning dat een ander aspect van voor wereldoorlog 1 nog steeds heel prominent was en zelfs nog sterker werd ingelepeld in westerse geesten; kolonialisme; het is best jammer hoe in de hele stukken over superioriteit claims de rol van koloniale propaganda niet wordt besproken wat volgens mij toch wel een ernstig gemis is en een hele dimensie van het interbellum weglaat after all; Engelse kinderen leerden in de jaren 20 het alfabelt met C stands for colonies of which great britain has the most. Als ik nog een andere kritiek zou geven, dan is het dat Phillip Blom regelmatig te veel en te diep aandacht geeft aan individuen, met een uitpluizing van sappige details over hun leven. Vermoedelijk deed hij dit voor het boek een appeal te geven aan een breder publiek die mogelijk het boek te zwaar zouden vinden zonder, maar voor mij is dit ballast waar het boek gerust zonder had mee kunnen leven.

Al bij al blijft het een enorm meeslepend boek dat je eigenlijk het best kan appreciëren met een goede soundtrack en ik raad deze aan of miss het razen en bonken van machines dat zou ook nog werken. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg7rR.... And remember, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing ofwel play it sam (lees het boek om te snappen waarom ik dit erbij post) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vThu...

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was amazed by the detail and scope of this book. I really never realized the impact of the years between the first and second World Wars. It's the kind of book that reveals something new no matter how many times you read it.

[Matteo Banzola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nel dire qualcosa su questo libro comincerei con tre osservazioni.
La prima: è un libro scritto in modo estremamente avvincente. La narrazione è fluida e Blom riesce a tenere incollato il lettore alle pagine con un sapiente dosaggio di narrazione, sintesi ed esempi insoliti.
La seconda: La grande frattura non è una storia d’Europa, ma essenzialmente è una storia culturale dell’Europa tra le due guerre comparata agli Stati Uniti.
La terza: il libro ha un’impostazione decisamente originale. Ogni capitolo corrisponde ad un anno. Per ogni anno Blom ha scelto un evento o un personaggio significativo e a partire da quello ha allargato lo sguardo e ampliato il panorama delle osservazioni offerte al lettore.

Hobsbawm ha definito il trentennio 1914-1945 “Età della catastrofe”: la prima guerra mondiale seguita dalla più grande crisi economica che il mondo avesse conosciuto e da una seconda guerra mondiale sono sufficienti a giustificare la definizione. Se c’è stato un periodo nella storia contemporanea in cui vivere era per la maggioranza delle persone una faccenda complicata, quel trentennio occupa probabilmente il primo posto.

Anche La grande frattura di Blom restituisce il clima di incertezza, sacrifici e angoscia che imperversò in quel trentennio. Ma il suo sguardo è allo stesso tempo più articolato e più semplificato. Per lui i processi e i fenomeni che contraddistinguono i decenni tra le due guerre erano già presenti e attivi prima della Grande Guerra. La prima guerra mondiale ne accelerò bruscamente la maturazione e li impose. Da questo punto di vista Blom ha ragione: la tecnologia, il rinnovamento delle scienze, i partiti di massa, le ideologie (o almeno una di esse, il socialismo) erano già presenti e cominciavano a muovere i primi passi. Li avremo conosciuti compiutamente dopo la prima guerra mondiale.
In effetti, giustamente, la prima guerra mondiale è l’elemento fondante del libro. Lo shell shock – i traumi psichici di guerra che colpiscono i soldati devastandone la mente – diventa metafora di un’epoca che resta irrimediabilmente orfana delle coordinate precedenti e non riesce a maturane di proprie: “molti aspetti caratteristici del ventennio tra le due guerre – osserva giustamente Blom – si spiegano solo a partire dal trauma, dalla sensazione di tradimento e dalla delusione” (p. 59).

I giovani che erano partiti per la guerra cantando, fiduciosi di poter dimostrare il proprio valore e immaginando avventure, restano avvinghiati in un mare di fango, immobilizzati in trincee che rendono il tempo monotono e vengono falcidiati da armi anonime e lontane: per loro si concretizza un inferno che è l’opposto dell’eroismo che avevano immaginato. La guerra rende queste sterminate masse d’uomini cinici, spaesati e brutali (si veda la testimonianza di Breton a p. 187).
La spaventosa fornace della guerra, alimentata a carne umana, ha in sé il trinomio che caratterizzeranno i decenni successivi: violenza, macchine e decadenza.

Il capitolo dedicato a Magnitogrsk (corrispondente al 1929) incarna alcuni aspetti della prima e, soprattutto, della seconda. Che l’Unione Sovietica sia stato un posto tremendo in cui vivere è fuori discussione, ma l’aver iniziato a parlarne dopo il 1917 e a partire dalla rivolta di Kronstadt del 1923, intesa come prova del sogno di una società equa annegato nel sangue, pongono l’Autore in una prospettiva in parte distorta. Restano escluse dall’analisi il crollo dell’impero zarista e la guerra civile; resta fuori la NEP (cioè la consapevolezza che la spietatezza del “comunismo di guerra” doveva essere accantonato a data da destinarsi): Lenin era un uomo capace di decisioni drastiche, ma non era necessariamente una matrioska dalla quale, per forza, doveva venir fuori un Stalin.
Ciò nulla toglie alla spietatezza del regime e ai costi umani spaventosi richiesti dall’industrializzazione forzata, illustrati egregiamente nei capitoli dedicati a Magnitogorsk e alla carestia che mise in ginocchio l’Ucraina nel 1932. (Blom però dimentica una “profezia” illuminante di Stalin: la sua affermazione del 1930 secondo la quale “tra dieci anni ci sarà una guerra e noi dobbiamo industrializzarci per essere pronti” riportata in uno dei libri che cita nella bibliografia).

Le macchine che divorano l’uomo non sono una prerogativa dell’Unione Sovietica. Con processi completamente diversi se ne rendono conto anche gli americani. Negli anni del dopoguerra, negli USA, l��industria automobilistica era stato il motore trainante dell’intera economia (p. 288 ss.). L’automobile aveva aperto orizzonti infiniti (incentivando la costruzione di strade), ampliato a dismisura la libertà dei giovani e, con la garanzia di avere un po’ di privacy (magari non proprio comoda), rivoluzionato i costumi e i rapporti di coppia. Ma la crisi del ’29 spezza bruscamente il sogno di una società inondata da macchine che semplificano la vita dell’uomo diminuendo la fatica e garantendo maggior tempo libero: i quattro anni di carestia che devastano l’Oklahoma nei primi anni Trenta (descritta stupendamente da Steinbeck in Furore) sono il frutto anche della meccanizzazione introdotta dai trattori. In Tempi moderni il genio di Chaplin si incaricherà di mostrare gli effetti di una società che trasforma gli uomini in schiavi di macchine (p. 26).
Gli Stati Uniti sono un paese troppo vasto e variegato per essere ritratti in un’unica immagine. C’è l’America delle grandi città dove il proibizionismo (espressione di una lotta tra la tradizione e il progresso) ha trasformato in fungaie di locali illegali che fanno la fortuna di jazzisti di talento e di mafiosi come Al Capone; c’è la profonda America del sud, nella quale le teorie di Darwin potevano ancora scatenare risentimenti profondi e processi in tribunale; ci sono le università e Hollywood che accolgono a braccia aperte i talenti in fuga dal nazismo (quelli affermati e conosciuti, per gli altri, giovani ricercatori, gli spazi sono minori); c’è l’America che rinnega se stessa cercando di bloccare l’immigrazione. Nel descrivere questi e altri fenomeni Blom è maestro. Qui li ho elencati, ma con grande finezza ne illumina i chiaro-scuri, le ambiguità e la forza: nei primi anni Venti, col jazz, gli Stati Uniti sono già in grado di esportare sul continente europeo una musica fino a poco prima relegata ai ghetti dei neri.
Una musica accolta benevolmente dalle élites colte di Parigi e Londra, ma avversata da una Vienna socialista e progressista e ormai orfana di un impero, capitale di un piccolo trancio di terra popolato da contadini di sentimenti tradizionali e cattolici; tollerata da una inquieta e inquietante Berlino, paradiso della prostituzione (soprattutto maschile), calamita per artisti disillusi dal ripiegarsi su se stessa di un’Austria smarrita e confusa e da una Londra dalla rigida legislazione in materia di morale.

Scrivere una storia culturale significa scrivere una storia di città. Una città come Berlino, ad esempio, non può ridursi a semplice capitale di ogni eccesso; attirava artisti da ogni dove e gli anni venti furono un decennio dorato (p 305). Vienna, sebbene disorientata dalla perdita dell’Impero, era stata capace di progettare il più grande quartiere popolare integrato dell’epoca: il Karl-Marx-Hof, costruito tra il 1927 e il 1930 e fiore all’occhiello dell’amministrazione socialista della città (p. 265 ss.) Parigi restava pur sempre Parigi e, grazie al franco debole, attirava artisti dagli USA a frotte. Erano artisti stanchi o insofferenti del proibizionismo, attratti dalla grandeur che la capitale francese aveva goduto prima della guerra. Americani e non solo trovano riparo nella capitale francese – talvolta grazie alla protezione di qualche munifico mecenate. Qui matura il dadaismo, un movimento dedito allo sberleffo e al non-senso che ha il suo corrispettivo dorato nei “flappers” londinesi (tra i quali spiccavano donne emancipate e che destavano scandalo).
Dadaisti e “flappers” sono l’espressione di una “generation perdue” dalla guerra che rifiuta più o meno consapevolmente di fare i conti con la realtà durissima di quegli anni terribili. Agli occhi della generazione più giovane quella di coloro che avevano sciupato la propria giovinezza nel fango delle trincee era stata una generazione tradita dai padri, i cui valori non avevano più alcun senso. L’etica protestante del duro lavoro, di una morale un poco bigotta e del sacrificio era sentita come ridicola in tempi in cui tutto veniva percepito come provvisorio: meglio spassarsela come i “flappers” che potevano permetterselo (facendo la fortuna dei primi giornali di gossip) o andare fieri di un’arte che diventava la bandiera del disinteresse per quel che accadeva per le strade delle città italiane, insanguinate dalle squadracce fasciste, o, poco più tardi, di Berlino, da quelle brune.

Se l’onda d’urto della Rivoluzione russa aveva rischiato di travolgere il continente, Blom vede nel fascismo la contro-risposta della reazione, ma nelle pagine che dedica al fascismo la sua posizione è comunque molto diversa da quella di un Nolte. La sua chiave di lettura non è prettamente politica. Dedica spazio a Michele Schirru, l’anarchico sconfitto dal sogno americano che torna in Italia per per uccidere Mussolini, e il duce come uomo capace di dominare gli istinti e le aspettative delle masse anche attraverso i Patti Lateranensi che, garantendogli l’appoggio della Chiesa, gli conferiscono anche un’aureola di sacralità (non a caso qui l’A. si appoggia a Duggan).
Questa impostazione serve all’A. anche per indicare le differenze tra fascismo e nazismo. L’Italia era un Paese povero e agricolo, la Germania, benché in ginocchio per le riparazioni e la crisi economica era la massima potenza industriale d’Europa. Il nazismo non cercò il sostegno della Chiesa come il fascismo italiano o austriaco dopo il 1934.
A una tradizione completamente inventata popolata di Nibelunghi e affini i nazisti affiancarono e proposero una religione totalitaria che mescolava versioni volgarizzate del pensiero di Nietzsche, un antisemitismo diffuso nell’Europa centro-orientale che oltre ad avere connotazioni religiose e sociali (gli ebrei ricchi, installati nei posti di comando) trasformarono in razzismo biologico, razziale.

Nelle illusioni distopiche delle religioni totalitarie, di destra o di sinistra, furono in molti a cadere, anche ingegni di prim’ordine – che poi di solito si sarebbero disillusi anche con conseguenze tragiche. Blom ne individua la forza nella loro capacità di offrire qualcosa in cui credere, “qualcosa di più grande e sublime dell’individuo, una legalità storica” (p. 370). Sono affermazioni corrispondenti al clima di quei decenni. Il successo clamoroso dell’oscuro libro di Spengler, Il tramonto dell’Occidente sarebbe inconcepibile al di fuori di quel contesto (vedi p. 70 e ss.). Ma da questo punto di vista vi erano profonde differenze tra il comunismo e i movimenti nazi-fascisti. La rivoluzione russa sembrava concretizzare un sogno di giustizia sociale antico almeno quanto la rivoluzione francese e che una generazione ha creduto possibile realizzare; il fascismo offriva caso mai la garanzia di appartenere alla razza giusta, ariana, prediletta, destinata a grandi cose. (Non a caso le Olimpiadi del 1936 diventano un miracolo di propaganda di un regime che ha ricacciato indietro i soldati sfigurati dalla Grande Guerra e ridotti alla miseria più nera e presenta atleti dalla muscolatura statuaria). Ma sono orizzonti completamente diversi, che infatti, nella seconda guerra mondiale saranno contrapposti.
Il libro di Blom si ferma alla vigilia della catastrofe della seconda guerra mondiale, un incubo che ha aleggiato per tutti gli anni precedenti dopo la prima e si chiude con una serie di considerazioni molto assennate e condivisibili sui lasciti della Grande Guerra e sulle differenze tra “la crisi sistemica” del ’29 e quella di oggi. Vi sono pagine illuminanti. Tra le molte e a solo titolo di esempio, alcune relative all’immigrazione negli Stati Uniti illustrano molto bene lo stato d’animo di coloro che in qualche modo sono – o si sentono – già integrati e il disprezzo e il rigetto che provano e manifestano verso i nuovi arrivati o coloro che cercano di entrare nel Paese (p. 359 e ss.)

La grande frattura di Blom è una splendida introduzione alla storia dell’età della catastrofe. Anche se la storia dell’economia, centrale per la comprensione di quel periodo, resta in qualche modo sullo sfondo, i riferimenti sono puntuali, precisi e affidabili. Il libro è ricchissimo di informazioni e di percorsi originali. Ed è un libro che consiglio davvero con piacere.

[Dropbear123 · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5 rounding up for Goodreads. I really liked it and would recommend it to anyone interested in the interwar period. I also liked it a lot more than Blom's earlier book The Vertigo Years: Europe 1900-1914 as it has more politics. Possibly one of the better history books I've read in 2022.

The basic style of the book is that each year is a chapter and an event from that year is used to talk about and analyze a specific theme across the whole period. So 1918 is the end of WWI so the chapter is a lot about trauma, the impact of so many dead or crippled and the feeling of a 'lost generation' which affected the whole period, 1920 uses the beginning of prohibition to talk about prohibition across the whole 20s and its impact on morality etc. It's not an 'X happened then Y happened' sort of book. There is a good mix of cultural, scientific (the Scopes Monkey trial about teaching evolution in 1925 for example), ideological (1919 chapter starts with D'Annunzio's capture of Fiume so it is about the beginning of fascist movements and other conservative views like Spengler's Decline of the West) and political topics. The author is good at bringing the cultural and scientific topics back to how people felt politically and how they responded to the changes of the 20s and 30s. Morality and the reaction to the new movements, arts and lifestyles get a lot of mention in the book. .There isn't really anything about international politics between countries, aside from the 1937 chapter on the Spanish Civil War but I like the focus on the other stuff for a change. Despite the title saying it is focused on the west there is still quite a bit on the Soviet Union, with the 1921 Kronstadt rebellion (the theme is failed leftwing or worker uprisings, Germany's communist March Action and the USA's Battle of Blair Mountain is also mentioned), the beginning of the 5 year plans (mainly focused around the founding of the steel plant at Magnitogorsk) and the holodomor. The writing style is very good and the descriptions/depictions are also very good for things like the Dust Bowl in the USA.

[Ilya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was excellent. Philipp Blom offers his take on interwar years between WW1 and WW2. He covers in great detail cultural, historical and social developments of those years. Blom starts off by exploring the ways in which WW1 affected the soldiers who served on the Western front. The results of mechanized warfare were shellshock and disfigurement of bodies. Additionally, mechanization brought the world forcefully into modernity.

But that's not all. Blom explores other historical and cultural initiations such as prohibition, Harlem Renaissance, quantum physics, Dada movement and the birth of surrealism, impactful films and other forms of art during that time period, Weimar Germany, Stalin's Show trials, Holodomor, Berlin Olympics and so much more. This book offers a comprehensive view of life and culture in the West between 1918 and 1938 and it's written in a way that's easy to follow. These times were very uncertain and Blom brings lucidity to the events that took place.

I would recommend this book to any reader who wants to learn more about interwar years and cultural history. The book covers Europe, USA and Soviet Union, so if you're interested in history of those locations, you will find this book informative and interesting. Overall, I really enjoyed Fracture: Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938 and I might check out Philipp Blom's book on the history of Europe between 1900-1914, which can be seen as a prequel to this book.

[Bronwyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was pretty good. There are a number of topics in this that I’m interested in, and some I’m not, but I’m glad to have learned a bit about them all.

I started this over four years ago, and read through the first half fairly quickly. Once I got to the second half and years I wasn’t as interested in, I stopped reading. Thanks to the library having this on audio I’ve finished!

[Noah Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waaaay better than expected.

[Diego Florian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excelente descripción del entorno en cada año posterior a la primera guerra mundial, cada hecho descrito influenció lo que se ha vivido los años posteriores en europa y el mundo, muy bien escrito, excelente lectura.

[Sam Tornio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compelling, but at times a bit muddled.

[Steven Hull · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philipp Blom was born in Germany. He earned a DPhil in History from Oxford University. In Fracture Blom discusses the pivotal two decades between the world wars. His theories about the major trends during these years differ from conventional wisdom. He believes that these trends predated World War I, were amplified by that horrific experience, and culminated in the catastrophe of World War II. These trends included rapid urbanization, mass societies, consumerism, mass media, industrialization, big finance, feminism, the growth of the social sciences and modernistic art trends that broke with contemporary. The eventuality of World War I owes much to the disruption provoked by these trends, which emerged from the war intact if not thriving.

A key difference, for Blom, between the pre-World War I years and the interwar years was that the former was a time of unbounded artistic and intellectual curiosity and belief in a better future. War was not considered a certainty, but rather was often rationalized as an impossibility because of Europe’s economic and cultural interconnections. The interwar years were less optimistic, circumscribed by a belief that another war could happen, a potential occurrence that evolved into a certainty over the two interwar decades. World War I shattered the faith in progress and in the desirability of the middle class life and values. Intellectual life languished. This faith was not regained during the interwar years.

In the United States a failed experiment in moral cleansing occurred with the passage of Prohibition. Instead of achieving its purpose it fostered lying, deceit, and law breaking on a massive scale. It also promoted egalitarianism, as speakeasies became melting pots of all segments of society joined together by the love of liquor, fun and the drama of breaking the law.

Blom devotes a chapter to each year between 1918 and 1938. A theme is chosen and that theme investigated in depth. Included are descriptions of the Black Renaissance in Harlem; the instant and broad popularity of jazz; the alienation of a generation of American intellectuals and artists who moved abroad to escape; and the rise of Fascism in Italy, Germany, Austria, and Spain. We also learn of the brutality of Stalin, the tragedy of America’s and the world’s Great Depression, and Hitler’s manipulation of the 1936 Olympics to suit his own racist purposes. Blom concludes with this view that the trends of the pre-war and interwar years remain with us today in different forms—mass instantaneous communication; new economic orders; unemployment; culture wars; and aggressive, competing political ideologies. He and we should hope that the eventual outcomes of our world will be quite different from those of the years 1918 to 1938.

[Jeff Howells · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the follow up to ‘The Vertigo Years’ which looked at the lead up to the First World War. That was excellent, but if anything this book is even better.
It covers the interwar years, which I’ve always found particularly fascinating. It was the time of the ‘bright young things’ enjoying themselves against a back drop of jazz & modernism in London, whilst for a large chunk of the period decadence & hedonism reigned in Paris, Berlin, New York & Vienna.
However there was also a darker side. The works of Darwin & Nietzsche continues to be twisted by people for their own malign ends which, of course, had a profound effect on the first half of the 20th century. There were clashes between ideologies who would rather fight than debate, and whilst the 20s were decadent the 30s almost descended into anarchy - the economic crash causing untold harm - as did the famine in the Ukraine.
Blom brings a whole load of disparate strands together into a readable & compelling narrative. It’s certainly one of the best books of the era I’ve read.

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well put together history based on mainstream scholarship (a non-leftwing take which is ok you have to hear the standard official story as well) and it is well put together. The author is good at weaving a good narrative very textured but flows well giving one a feel for the art and culture and science landmarks of the era. I enjoyed it.

[Katharine Holden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. Interesting. A wealth of detail. I am in search of this author's other books.

[Maynard Handley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book full of interesting stories and connections many of which, even if you think you know the relevant history, may be new to you.
But it's precisely because the author is so ambitious that I have to be, in like measure, disappointed.

When you write a book like this, what are you trying to do? You can answer this at many levels.
- The most naive is to say that it's a history of culture in the West over 20 years. Which is fine, but "culture" is a huge subject, so who decides that these are the relevant episodes and issues?
- A slightly more sophisticated answer is to say that this is about the "driving forces" behind culture during this period, and they are important and relevant because they are the continuations of the past, and the engine of the future. But that's a set of claims, not a proof.
- The most sophisticated answer is perhaps that this is the story the intellectuals of our time tell about the intellectuals of that time. (So basically our time's version of Patristic History.) I think this is essentially correct, but the question in that case is: is this a story worth telling?

However you understand these three answers, in each case the question I find most interesting is: is the story TRUE? Yes it sounds good, is full of interesting characters and amusing subplots, but is it actually TRUE?
To give you an example of what I mean, the conventional story (ie what "everyone" says, not just Blom) is that the arts of the 20s, from words to images, were the result of trauma in WW1, men dwarfed by machines, random senseless killing, blah blah. OK, sure, sounds plausible BUT we didn't really see something similar after WW2, even though there was a whole lot more of men dwarfed by machines (the whole new scope of air warfare or the size of the Pacific), random senseless killing (now with civilians!) blah blah. Sure we got some of this in terms of plots and claims about how it informed various movies; but we didn't get Dada or Surrealism. We got Abstract Impressionism in painting, not depictions of death; we didn't get upheavals like Joyce or ee cummings in literature. Which all seems kinda suspicious, no?

I don't have full answers here; I suspect much of the answer is that one damn thing happens after another, and the events are more or less contingent, the unfolding of any master narrative. But I also suspect there's more elite manipulation of what counts as culture, and what gets recorded in this story, than people want to admit. A few people (not "society", not the "zeitgeist"), for reasons of their own, chose to bless some developments and ignore others, and then to spin a yarn about what they had achieved. This sounds somewhat conspiratorial; I don't think it's blatantly such, ie it's not a conspiracy, or even the deliberate strategy of individuals, it's simply the way things play out in a society where a few individuals (those who run the publishing presses and edit the magazines) act as gatekeepers. Blom pays lip service to this in a few cases where it's glaringly obvious, eg Tristan Tzara or André Breton, but I suspect it's the main story, not a minor side theme.

I also suspect that (as usual my hobbyhorse of cliometrics) in the absence of measurement you can find evidence for any story you want to tell.
Was the story of culture in the 1920s one of Surrealism and Jazz? Or of dime novels and musicals? Certainly if we go by mass tastes we get a very different answer. I think it's significant, for example, that during these same 20s when, we are told, everyone was walking around in a daze after the horrors of WW1, it's very very difficult to find an anti-war movie, let alone an anti-WW1 movie. Multiple war movies were made, some of them about WW1, but they seem to mostly have the same ambivalent "well it's a dirty business, but what are you gonna do? someone has to protect the country" attitude as always. If you're looking for some sort of culture-wide shock at the brutality of WW1, you don't seem to find much of it outside the productions of a very narrow elite.

And even if we go by the more nebulous term of "influence" it's not clear. Again consider post WW2. You can chat up Abstract Impressionism or try to find some sort of interesting and dominant strain in US literature as much as you like, but the reality is that TV dwarfed them all at the time, and in terms of how much it mattered, how much it affected everything subsequent, even as TV itself kept evolving.

To what extent does the story the intellectuals tell themselves about what happened and why miss the *most important* elements, like TV? To what extent is it massaged after the fact to flatter the audience?
This is obvious in the lack of interest such stories have in technological changes (Ford matters as an exemplar of "capitalism", not in terms of actual inventions of better differentials, or gearboxes, or battery starters or ...) But I suspect there are less obvious elements that are also missed because they don't fit into the narrative and its audience. This is especially obvious in the uncritical use of the word scientific before various pseudo-scientific enterprises, eg "scientific racism". My point is not to argue about the morality of racism, it is about the use of the adjective "scientific". In what way was any part of this enterprise scientific? There was none of attempt to invalidate theories, to steelman opponents' arguments, to look for counterexamples, to make then test predictions, that characterizes science.
The issue is not just that it's lazy and incorrect to call this stuff science; it's that doing so is emblematic of a larger lack of curiosity into what really drives the world, once you get past the flattering myths of the intellectual. Where did this phrase "scientific" racism come from? Why was it allowed to persist? Why is it still in use today? Answering those questions will tell us more about how "history" (as the story intellectuals tell about themselves) comes about than any investigation of Art in the 20s...
We see the same strange lack of curiosity around the rise of High Modernism in the 20s. We are told (by many leftists anyway) that Marx' primary and initial impetus was alienation, a horror at the way industrial work, and specifically regimented fragmented work where a laborer engages in the same repetitive partial operation hour after hour, day after day. Given this, then how are we to interpret the Soviet Union's rush to even more extreme forms of such industrial alienation, or the gleeful adoption of such analyses and viewpoints by people like Le Corbusier, and their lionization by an arts worlds that claimed to be disciples of Marx? There's something very weird going on here in this intellectual history, and I don't understand why historians don't want to investigate it further. My rough guess is that it boils down to two issues
- the Marxism of the intellectual is almost always an affectation, adopted as a combination of getting in with the cool crowd (other intellectuals) and pissing off the squares (mom and dad). Thus is it today, and thus was it in the 1920s.
- this affectation doesn't come with any real interest in, or concern for, the working man and her problems. Thus whether it's housing, employment, or legal structures, what is designed for them by the intellectual consists of 0% understanding of the problem that needs to be solved, an 100% attempt to impress other intellectuals.

The second conceptual problem, after this lack of curiosity in how certain (non-obvious, and non-obviously sensible) viewpoints come to be widely adopted, at least among the literati (the use of the term "scientific" racism, high modernism), is a general problem with narrative history, namely the way it tends to suggest that one story is the dominant or only story. It makes sense to tell the story of suffering in the USSR, but there's a parallel story of people who are thrilled by what is happening (and not just the Western intellectuals version of this, but the true believers at every level of society, or the people moving from the farm to the city). It makes sense to tell the story of the rise of the Nazis and their effect on groups like the Jews or gays, but again there's a parallel story of people who love what is happening, not even necessarily because they hate Jews and gays, just because they like having the trains running on time, the end of much of the Great Depression, or the feeling that the future has hope.
It's like you can tell a story of the US that's the Great Story of the 60's – Protest, Vietnam, Great Society, hippies, blah blah. But at that time, just like now, essentially about half the country was "Republican" and "Conservative" and they had a different experience, some of it bad and disapproving, much of it simply orthogonal to the Great Story of the 60's, a completely different story. If you were a businessman in the 60s and (like any sensible person) mostly ignored the newspapers, your story might be mainly about ever rising stock prices, conglomerations as a new business form, and the expansion of US multinationals all over the world. If you were an engineer, your story might be about how new materials and solid state electronics started changing every single aspect of how you thought and what you did. If you were a Catholic, your story might be about Vatican II, and then a strange re-alignment as many of you and your fellow Catholics found you had more in common with various Evangelical churches and even Orthodox Judaism, at the same time that other Catholics found that they had more in common with mainline Protestant churches and Reformed Judaism.

How do we handle this? I don't have a great answer. The best I can suggest is that
- constantly, along with the mainline narrative, some of these other stories are told; and
- numbers are given, imperfect as they may be, use whatever is available, to try to suggest how many people are experiencing each story. Clearly there are not going to be reliable opinion polls as to "Do you support Joseph Stalin?" or "Are you happier under the Nazi's than you were under Weimar?", but often proxies of at least some form can be found – changing literacy rates, electrification, income per household, things like that.
My point is not "try to humanize the dictators"; I'm not interested in defining morality. My point is, as I've said, there are always multiple stories, and presumably the point of being interested history is being interested in most of these stories, not just one of them. History is not ONLY about moral monsters. And even if moral monsters are your primary interest, if you insist that moral monstrosity is always obvious from the start (which is essentially the lesson the single narrative of Germany or Russia) then you risk ensuring that you won't recognize when it comes for you...

[Sarah]

I must admit that, the more of Fracture: Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938, that I read, the better I began to feel about the world which I inhabit presently. At a time when nary a day passes without headlines proclaiming a bombing or a blast somewhere in the world, it's easy to forget how much worse things could be - how much worse, in fact, they have been.

As Philipp Blom illustrates, for 20 years Europe (and to a somewhat lesser extent, the United States) staggered from one disaster to another. A rough list includes: revolution and civil war (Austria and Spain); Lenin and Stalin and artificial famine and unknowable millions killed in any given year (USSR and Ukraine); genocide (Armenia); the rise of fascism (Italy, most notably), communism (USSR), and Nazism (Germany). That is only Europe. The U.S. saw unprecedented race wars throughout the country; labor wars, particularly in mining; Prohibition, and with it the rise of lawlessness and the likes of Al Capone; and the environmental disaster now popularly known as the Dust Bowl. Also, there was, you know, the Great Depression. Unemployment reached 40 percent in Germany; it was lower in France only because such a large proportion of working age men had been killed in World War I.

So the world was a depressing place. Of course, there were also jazz and flappers and Bright Young Things; Dadaism, surrealism, and Bauhaus architecture; standard physics vs. quantum physics; advances in cinematography and music and women's rights.

Fracture frequently reads more like an academic text than a popular press one. Blom's writing is at its best when he is mining the social issues of the time, whether that is the Great Migration or the 1936 Olympics. I found the discourses on art styles, musical influences, and scientific arguments to drone on a bit, and must admit to skimming more than a few of the sections. Still, this book packs a serious punch, and history junkies in particular should enjoy Blom's thorough overview of the years between the world wars, but which were themselves packed full of conflicts and great and small, collectively setting the stage for not only World War II, but much of the world's strife today.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this book has a subtitle of 'Life and Culture in the West', it might have been better served using the title, 'The Effects of WWI on Postwar Society'. Phillip Blom constantly leads the reader back to the war to end wars in his comprehensive study of the years between the wars. And even understanding that the effects of that conflict were world-changing, this book takes that concept to a deeper level. The writer not only focuses on the political and social events of that period but also includes the artistic movements and actions of the common man. I've often considered these two facets of our culture to be ignored by history writers. But here at least some of their stories are told. From the struggles of returning war veterans to Dust Bowl victims to striking miners, many unheard voices get some quality time in this book. The arts are also represented here making this book more comprehensive than the usual fare.

The style of this book affords the writer the time to pursue these underserved topics. Each chapter is dedicated to one of the inter-war years and a subject is explored from there. not all the subjects are obvious. 1929, for example, is not about the Wall Street crash but concerns a city being built in Stalins Russia that would be the envy of the world. It failed to do that becoming little more than a boondoggle but this subject choice shows why I liked this book so much. There are endless resources about the crash but this failed vision of a Russian jewel of a city is one I'm not familiar with. The book has many stories like this as the Author focuses more on the cultural aspects of life between the wars and less on the political actions. He was right to focus on the effect of WWI on Europe and America and inspired to draw attention away from the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of Nationalism. This makes the book work more completely and adds a new trail to a well-trodden path.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very good introduction to the interwar period (1918-1938) in the West. The West there means western Europe, the USA and, maybe surprisingly, the USSR. The main theme is culture and ideology, but overall scope is wider, including fashion, politics, science etc.

The book structured pseudo-chronologically, i.e. it takes something tied to a specific date and then extrapolates both backward and forward in time. For example, chapter ‘1936: Beautiful Bodies’ is about Olympic games in berlin in 1936, but it also looks at questions of ideal man and Ubermensch, fascination with pseudo-Greek sculpture of perfect body specimen in Germany, USSR and Italy, as well as racism toward Jesse Owens in both Germany [which is well known] and the USA [which hasn’t been known by me].

Maybe a special mention should be given to the Chapter on Holodomor, as a Ukrainian I highly appreciate it.

While the book is good, it has several serious flows
1. Eastern Europe is almost non-existent, there has been nothing of value to be mentioned in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, hasn’t there?
2. Conflict between ideologies, fascism and communism is given as a binary, there is no third way. What about anarchism of different types?
3. As a consequence of the previous one, civil war in former Russian empire is only between whites and reds, as well as majority of other conflicts of the period.
4. The final chapter, in summing up the situation, the author moves to the present day with vitriolic invective against the modern capitalism. He is a historian and quite a good one, but economics is not his forte

Recommended to anyone, who wants an introduction to the period

[Ed Bernard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A popular theory among historians is that the First and Second World Wars, rather than being separate conflicts, are actually the same conflict, separated by a period of retrenchment for both sides — like the historical 30 years War. This book looks at the period between the world wars from a cultural perspective — the period was genuinely revolutionary in music (jazz), fashion, economics, consumerism, sports (1936 Olympics with Jesse Owens), and many other ways. Blom contends that the first World War ushered in the machine age in warfare, and the shock to the system resulted in the cultural upheaval and what he calls the emergence of true modernism. Could be, though the book really isn’t arguing all that aggressively — it reads more like a survey of the world in that time, rather than a coherent case (tellingly, he divides the sections by year rather than some larger point). But, I don’t think the book suffers for the indifferent narrative arc — there is so much covered here and the sense of a change in collective psyche is so pervasive that we can easily draw our own conclusions. Luckily for us, despite its massive content, the book is easy to absorb and Blow does an amazing job revealing the subtle change from the optimism of pre-WW1 to the pessimism that seemed rampant prior to WW2, despite the freedoms and devil-may-care attitude of the flapper age. The book is mostly centered on Europe, but at the same time delves more into the USSR than many Euro-centric histories. I found this book fascinating and intellectually challenging, and would recommend it to anyone trying to understand how WW1 connects to WW2 from a social perspective.

Grade: A

[David Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is as good as popular history gets. The book covers the period 1918 to 1938, which was a truly extraordinary period. Our time seems beige by comparison. Larger-than-life characters, wars, revolutions, mass murders, trauma from the past, angst about the future, the Prohibition, the Dust Bowl, mass madness . . . and Josephine Baker, Berlin decadence, the Charleston, Jazz, Charlie Chaplin . . .

The author covers the period one year at a time, using each year to highlight a theme that is particularly relevant to that year but may apply to the whole period. He introduces each theme with an anecdote or character study that illustrates it. The book, in fact, is full of stories. It's also well written, with clever turns of phrase and interesting slants that make it entertaining as well as informative.

The author is well aware of the parallels between then and now - e.g. while we have A.I. they had robots - only he doesn't make a song and dance about it but lets readers see it for themselves. Take the following quote:

"Something oppressed them. It was the stupidity of the crowd, it was hurry and haste, it was Mass Production, Babbittry, Our Business Civilization; or perhaps it was the Machine, which had been developed to satisfy men's needs, but which was now controlling those needs and forcing its standardized products upon us by means of omnipresent advertising and omnipresent vulgarity."

Apart from one unfamiliar word - which means 'narrow-minded materialism' - and a hint of old-fashioned diction ('men') this could have been written yesterday. It was actually written a century ago.

A great book.

[Mike Violano · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not your typical History book. It is a fascinating collection of the stories, events and people that shaped politics, culture, social change and hopes and fears in the two decades between the end of World War I and the advent of World War II. Polarizing change, despair and discontent emerged and festered in both Europe and the US. It was the birth of Nazism and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. Wall Street crashed and with it the dreams of nations and peoples. New music captured the spirit of the 20s and 30s; dynamic jazz artists like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Scott Joplin and Josephine Baker filled clubs and dance halls. Other artists captivated the masses including Georgia O’Keefe, Man ray, Picasso and Edward Hopper. It was the dawn of talkies; Charlie Chaplin, Betty Boop, Marlene Dietrich and Clara Bow reigned on the silver screen.
In Russia millions died during Lenin’s civil war; Stalin’s artificial famine killed another million. Germany fell under the spell of Hitler. A World’s Fair in Chicago celebrated new technologies. In Germany Jesse Owns won four Olympic gold medals. In Austria the 1938 annexation by Germany signaled the end of a fragile peace and the coming global conflict.
Author Philipp Blom ends with a warning, “ During the interwar years many people dreamed of better future; today we are trying to prevent this future from materializing because we have lost all hope that change my be for the good, that we can transform our societies in the image of a common good.” The echoes of the history serve as a warning for the present.

[Hugh Ashton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slightly sideways look at history between 1918 and 1939 - taking in some of the principal social and political events of that time. Blom seems to be one of those historians who sees this period as a time of relative calm in the Second European Thirty Years' War (1914-1945), given the conflicts in most Continental European countries.
I learned a lot, for example, about the political violence in Austria post-1918, and about this history of Italy, particularly the influence of d'Annunzio's style and tactics had on Benito Mussolini's rise to power. The social structure of Prohibition, and the pernicious racism in the USA which ironically coexisted with the rise of African-American culture in the form of jazz also play a part in the story, as does the decadence of the Berlin of Christopher Isherwood and Sally Bowles.
However, the conclusion may seem particularly shocking to many, especially those right-wing libertarians who worship the god of Mammon. Blom pours scorn on what he sees as the myth of the neoliberal free market, which he blames for many of today's ills and insecurity, and which he dismisses, saying "the gospel of the free market is just as ideological as fascism or communism. The belief in the seemingly unideological power of the market has helped only a small minority, creating for the rest a world in which hundreds of millions of people live less well and more precariously than their parents." He builds a convincing case for this view in the previous chapters, and to me, there is much to be said for it. Your mileage may vary, of course, but the book is worth reading, whether or not it agrees with your views, if only for the stories it tells.