A fascinating and authoritative overview of modernism across the artistic disciplines. Gay stretches the lifespan of modernism in comparison with other historians, finding its beginnings in the works of Théophile Gautier and placing its birth firmly with the publication of Madame Bovary and Les Fleurs du Mal; he extends the modernist project well into the 1960s with Liechtenstein and Warhol identified as continuing to produce work modernist in flavour. Gay is exceptionally good at identifying, whether in architecture, dance or poetry, the essential qualities of the work that make it modernist; this skill is particularly apparent in the chapter on anti-modern modernists such as Hamsun and Eliot, who applied the innovations of modernism to support deeply conservative opinions. One of Gay's key defining characteristics of modernism is elitism, the need for modernism to define itself as high culture by establishing an oppositional low culture. In my view this point is stretched a little, especially when considering Liechtenstein as an artist who has combined high and low culture in his work and also as a modernist. However, this does not undermine the narrative of the origins, development and decline of modernism, though all its byways and aberrations, which is beautifully constructed and a pleasure to read. ( )

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An excerpt:
The one thing that I can praise Peter Gay for is his weaving together of diverse cultural strands into a rather unified fabric of modernism. It is refreshing to see an analysis that includes architecture, cinema, and dance along with the more commonly addressed artistic and literary movements. What was (perhaps necessarily) sacrificed, however, is the quality of his discussion of individuals within each movement. His selectivity seems to have shaved off the more radical edges of modernism, female modernists, Gertrude Stein, and the Harlem Renaissance altogether. And frankly, that is not a modernism that I can get excited about. ( )