Constellation of Genius

"Ezra Pound referred to 1922 as Year One of a new era. It was the year in which a shabby Irishman and a natty American entered the cultural landscape, hell-bent on exploding everything that realistic fiction and Georgian poetry held dear. James Joyce's Ulysses and The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot remain the twin towers at the beginning of modern literature; some would say, of modernity itself. ... [This book] puts the accomplishments of Eliot and Joyce in the context of the world in which their works appeared. The Ottoman Empire collapsed, British Liberalism came to an end, Marcus Garvey's dreams for a new Africa were thwarted. Dada was put to rest, [Marcel] Proust died, and Hollywood transformed the nature of fame. [Alfred] Hitchcock directed his first feature, [Wassily] Kandinsky and [Paul] Klee joined the Bauhaus, and Louis Armstrong took the train from New Orleans to Chicago ... [This] is a biography of a year, a journey through the diaries of the actors, anthropologists, artists, dancers, designers, film-makers, philosophers, playwrights, politicians and scientists whose lives and works collided over twelve months, creating a frenzy of innovation which broke the world in two."--Book jacket.