All that is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity

Front Cover
Verso, 1983 - History - 383 pages
"The political and social revolutions of the nineteenth century, the pivotal writings of Goethe, Marx, Dostoevsky, and others, and the creation of new environments to replace the old - all have thrust us into a modern world of contradictions and ambiguities. In this fascinating book, Marshall Berman examines the clash of classes, histories, and cultures, and ponders our prospects for coming to terms with the relationship between a liberating social and philosophical idealism and a complex, bureaucratic materialism. From a reinterpretation of Karl Marx to an incisive consideration of the impact of Robert Moses on modern urban living, Berman charts the progress of the twentieth-century experience. He concludes that adaptation to continual flux is possible and that therein lies our hope for achieving a truly modern society."--back cover.
 

Contents

Preface 133
13
The Tragedy of Development
37
Marx Modernism
87
Innovative SelfDestruction
98
The Unaccommodated Man
105
The Metamorphosis of Values
111
Modernism in the Streets
131
The Modernism of Underdevelopment
173
Some Notes on
287
A Shout in the Street
312
Bringing It All Back Home
329
Notes
349
Index
371
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