Knossos & the Prophets of Modernism (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780226289533)

In the spring of 1900, British archaeologist Arthur Evans began to excavate the palace of Knossos on Crete, bringing ancient Greek legends to life just as a new century dawned amid far-reaching questions about human history, art, and culture. With Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism, Cathy Gere relates the fascinating story of Evans's excavation and its long-term effects on Western culture. After the World War I left the Enlightenment dream in tatters, the lost paradise that Evans offered in the concrete labyrinth--pacifist and matriarchal, pagan and cosmic--seemed to offer a new way forward for writers, artists, and thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Giorgio de Chirico, Robert Graves, and Hilda Doolittle.

Assembling a brilliant, talented, and eccentric cast at a moment of tremendous intellectual vitality and wrenching change, Cathy Gere paints an unforgettable portrait of the age of concrete and the birth of modernism.

Author: Cathy Gere
ISBN-10: 0226289532
ISBN-13: 9780226289533
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 05/15/2009
Pages: 288
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.14lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 05/15/2009 pg. 85
New York Review of Books 08/13/2009 pg. 58
Chronicle of Higher Education 08/07/2009 pg. 17
Science 08/07/2009 pg. 677
Choice 11/01/2009
Books & Culture 09/01/2010 pg. 19