After studying this chapter, students should understand and be able to discuss the following:
The characteristics of Modernism and how this style reflected the era's historical events
The key historical happenings between 1914 and 1945
How liberalism altered during this period and the causes of these changes
The history of World War I, including its causes, major events, turning point, and peace settlement, along with its consequences for politics and culture
The nature of the Great Depression and its impact on culture and politics
About totalitarianism, its definition; its two major types, communism and fascism; and how this authoritarian form of government affected politics and culture during this period
The history of World War II, including its causes, major events, turning point, and outcome
The historical and cultural situation in 1945
Mass culture, its defining characteristics, origins, and relationship to technology and how it affected the course of modernism
The dominant role of the United States in the emerging worldwide mass culture
The innovations in the novel, particularly the introduction of stream-of-consciousness technique
The leading modernist novelists, representative works, and literary characteristics
The chief modernist poets, representative works, and style characteristics
The principal modernist dramatists, their innovations, representative works, and literary style
The advances in philosophy, notably the founding of logical positivism and existentialism and the influences of these schools of thought on the wider culture
The leading scientific developments and how they both influenced and reflected events in politics and culture
The major trends in modernist painting, the leading artists in each trend, and representative works
How the Bauhaus was the most significant development in architecture during this period
International-style architecture, its chief exponents, and a representative building
How film became an art form in this period and how film differs from movies
The impact of artistic and literary refugees from Europe's totalitarian regimes on the free societies in which they sought sanctuary
The dominant schools of music in this era, the leaders of the two schools, and representative compositions
The rise of American music with a distinctive style, the leading American composers, and representative works
Historic "firsts" of the Age of the Masses that became part of the Western tradition: nuclear power and nuclear weapons, a first modern instance of genocide, the highest standard of living in history for the most people, democracy for millions of citizens, polarization between mass and high culture, film as an art form, American dominance of worldwide mass culture, two superpowers instead of a multipolar arrangement, America as the world's industrial leader, Einstein's general theory of relativity, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and stream-of-consciousness writing
The role of the Age of the Masses and high modernism in transmitting the heritage of earlier civilizations: keeping classical influences alive in neoclassical music, continuing the tradition of world wars begun in the baroque era, reviving absolutist forms of government in totalitarianism, updating artistic trends that began in postimpressionism, and perpetuating modernism in general and giving it a pessimistic focus
