All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity
by Marshall Berman
On This Page
Description
"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, show more 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. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
A splendid romp from Faust to the Cross-Bronx Expressway. Excellent at two levels: we get familiarized with a whole stream of great literature, plus an over-arching perspective that certainly deepened my understanding even where I was familiar with the literature already. Modernity as kind of auto-catabolic process, where constant novelty powers itself through the destruction of yesterday's novelty; and modernism, maybe it's a process of finding meaning in the process of finding meaning. Industry and art reacting to each other, building off each other.
Quite wild how this book was completed January 1981, the inauguration of Reagan. That makes it a kind of swan song. It'd be interesting to hold this up against Fukuyama's End of History. show more Berman has history going on into the indefinite future, the world constantly remaking itself. Ten years later, Fukuyama sees the thing stopped. The icy grip of neo-liberalism! Probably it was only sleeping. But by now, it feels like it has been dismembered and scattered: Osiris or Sati. We had to make our own meaning back in the days of Dostoevsky and Sartre. Now we must wander as pilgrims and search for the bits and pieces, stare at them and wonder. Probably our findings are from many different puzzles. Still, a patchwork quilt can keep us warm in the long winter.
Yeah this is a glorious book. Ah, Puerto Rican Sun, an outdoor sculpture at 156th & Fox Sts. in the Bronx, is still there! Richard Serra's T.W.U. is long gone - was only up for a year or so. Yeah, Berman could see that reality would put constraints on our grand dreams of flying cars and what-not. Seems like that's where we are now, the constant revolution we're in the midst of. Every new forecast looks bleaker. We try harder, we shout louder, we shall overcome! There's a book we could use, overcoming injustice vs. overcoming the planetary eco-sphere. show less
Quite wild how this book was completed January 1981, the inauguration of Reagan. That makes it a kind of swan song. It'd be interesting to hold this up against Fukuyama's End of History. show more Berman has history going on into the indefinite future, the world constantly remaking itself. Ten years later, Fukuyama sees the thing stopped. The icy grip of neo-liberalism! Probably it was only sleeping. But by now, it feels like it has been dismembered and scattered: Osiris or Sati. We had to make our own meaning back in the days of Dostoevsky and Sartre. Now we must wander as pilgrims and search for the bits and pieces, stare at them and wonder. Probably our findings are from many different puzzles. Still, a patchwork quilt can keep us warm in the long winter.
Yeah this is a glorious book. Ah, Puerto Rican Sun, an outdoor sculpture at 156th & Fox Sts. in the Bronx, is still there! Richard Serra's T.W.U. is long gone - was only up for a year or so. Yeah, Berman could see that reality would put constraints on our grand dreams of flying cars and what-not. Seems like that's where we are now, the constant revolution we're in the midst of. Every new forecast looks bleaker. We try harder, we shout louder, we shall overcome! There's a book we could use, overcoming injustice vs. overcoming the planetary eco-sphere. show less
I love the Marx quote that this book is titled after and centred around:
As well as having a beautiful ring to it, this statement proves fruitful as a means of discussing what modernism and modernisation are in different historical, geographical, and disciplinary contexts, as well as the dialectic between them. Berman writes in a thoughtful, readable style, using a series of case studies to examine modernity. These include Goethe’s ‘Faust’, Baudelaire’s writings on the streets of Paris, and New York city planning in the 20th century. The eclectic show more mixture of sources is a joy in itself - poets, planners, and revolutionaries all crop up. My favourite section, the longest, is concerned with the political and literary history of St Petersburg. I was fascinated to learn about this strange city, built by order of Tsar Peter I and an illusionary outpost of modernism in pre-modern Russia. In fact, this section reads well with [b:Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia|21413849|Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible The Surreal Heart of the New Russia|Peter Pomerantsev|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1407196452s/21413849.jpg|40714614], which discusses contemporary manifestations of Russian unreality.
Although published in 1982, this book has important resonances today. Many of Berman’s insights still seem very apposite, for example:
There are plenty of other quote-worthy points to be found, however that was the most memorable to me. What I was left wondering, however, is what would constitute an end to modernism. Berman is dismissive of postmodernism as misinterpretation and seems to believe that, although it evolves continually, the essential character of modernism remains dominant. I suppose this is due to its paradoxical nature as constant change, everything solid melting into air. Perhaps the only end to modernism as Berman describes it would be an end to change, a freezing of the built environment, social relations, and economic activity into stasis. (cf [b:The End of History and the Last Man|57981|The End of History and the Last Man|Francis Fukuyama|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1391572633s/57981.jpg|56476]? Which proved extremely premature.) I am not particularly comfortable with the term late modernity, though. What can come next - later modernity? Very late modernity? Post-modernity? The choice seems to depend on whether there is sufficient continuity between past and present. Clearly I need to read some more books on this, as the cross-disciplinary perspective taken by Berman is very thought-provoking. I was especially pleased that he supports a point I make in my PhD thesis - that the constant movement enabled by cars is a key characteristic of modernity. However, I argued that technology and behaviour were changing this and that the social significance of cars was evolving. After all, this book was written before I was born and a lot can alter in 34 years. If modernity is constant redevelopment and change, then I suppose it is still with us. If the ways that we think about it in politics and literature have also changed (as is undoubtedly the case), is that a sign of some new modernity? Like I said, evidently more reading is needed. show less
All that is solid melts into air, all that is sacred is profaned, and men at last are forced to face… the real conditions of their lives and their relations with their fellow men.
As well as having a beautiful ring to it, this statement proves fruitful as a means of discussing what modernism and modernisation are in different historical, geographical, and disciplinary contexts, as well as the dialectic between them. Berman writes in a thoughtful, readable style, using a series of case studies to examine modernity. These include Goethe’s ‘Faust’, Baudelaire’s writings on the streets of Paris, and New York city planning in the 20th century. The eclectic show more mixture of sources is a joy in itself - poets, planners, and revolutionaries all crop up. My favourite section, the longest, is concerned with the political and literary history of St Petersburg. I was fascinated to learn about this strange city, built by order of Tsar Peter I and an illusionary outpost of modernism in pre-modern Russia. In fact, this section reads well with [b:Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia|21413849|Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible The Surreal Heart of the New Russia|Peter Pomerantsev|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1407196452s/21413849.jpg|40714614], which discusses contemporary manifestations of Russian unreality.
Although published in 1982, this book has important resonances today. Many of Berman’s insights still seem very apposite, for example:
The first point here is the immense power of the market in modern men’s inner lives: they look to the price list for answers to questions not merely economic but metaphysical - questions of what is worthwhile, what is honorable, even what is real. When Marx says that other values are ‘resolved into’ exchange value, his point is that bourgeois society does not efface old structures of value but subsumes them. Old modes of honor and dignity do not die; instead, they get incorporated into the market, take on price tags, gain new life as commodities. Thus, any imaginable mode of human contact becomes morally permissible the moment it becomes economically possible, becomes ‘valuable’; anything goes if it pays. This is what modern nihilism is all about.
There are plenty of other quote-worthy points to be found, however that was the most memorable to me. What I was left wondering, however, is what would constitute an end to modernism. Berman is dismissive of postmodernism as misinterpretation and seems to believe that, although it evolves continually, the essential character of modernism remains dominant. I suppose this is due to its paradoxical nature as constant change, everything solid melting into air. Perhaps the only end to modernism as Berman describes it would be an end to change, a freezing of the built environment, social relations, and economic activity into stasis. (cf [b:The End of History and the Last Man|57981|The End of History and the Last Man|Francis Fukuyama|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1391572633s/57981.jpg|56476]? Which proved extremely premature.) I am not particularly comfortable with the term late modernity, though. What can come next - later modernity? Very late modernity? Post-modernity? The choice seems to depend on whether there is sufficient continuity between past and present. Clearly I need to read some more books on this, as the cross-disciplinary perspective taken by Berman is very thought-provoking. I was especially pleased that he supports a point I make in my PhD thesis - that the constant movement enabled by cars is a key characteristic of modernity. However, I argued that technology and behaviour were changing this and that the social significance of cars was evolving. After all, this book was written before I was born and a lot can alter in 34 years. If modernity is constant redevelopment and change, then I suppose it is still with us. If the ways that we think about it in politics and literature have also changed (as is undoubtedly the case), is that a sign of some new modernity? Like I said, evidently more reading is needed. show less
Superb. And my kind of read. Berman explores his idea(s) by reference to (and sometimes subtle reinterpretations of) history and great literature; and the book opens doors to further reading. He gets a bit elegiac at the end but concludes on a balanced and hopeful note. Highly recommend.
What can I say but that this is what historical exploration/criticism should be: engagingly written, and fully recognizing the strengths, weaknesses, pitfalls, (humanity?) etc., of actors, situations -isms, and so forth, including the ones you hold dear. Really loved this book.
I'm really not sure what to say about this other than that is intensely thought-provoking, almost too much so to be read all at once. Even if one disagrees violently with the author's positions (as I imagine some must), the wide-ranging ramble through the arts is fascinating. I could have wished for a broader palette in some respects, but still found it a worthwhile read.
I am not personally any closer to being easy with the state of modernity after reading this, but at least I have a lot of company.
I am not personally any closer to being easy with the state of modernity after reading this, but at least I have a lot of company.
This book has completely shifted my thinking on modernity whilst being a joy to read. Passion oozes from the pages. I'd write more, but I don't think I could do it justice. If you're in any way interested in the concepts of modernity or postmodernity, read this book.
It is outrageous that, for all the vast energy expended by the sea, it merely surges endlessly back and forth-'and nothing is achieved!'
A reminder for authors: the extended metaphor is only half as clever as you think it is. (and half as clever as that)
On the eve of the Marxist Gathering, the house is packed, though, as often as not, our speaker is mostly interested in recalling his relationship with his mother. Berman resists this temptation, but one senses this is only due to lack of scope (a generous fifth of the text reminds us the author grew up in The Bronx (before it was cool)). A meritorious section on Marx does a bit of dialectics:
- 'Anarchists can never be more nihilistic than the Defenders of Order.' (certainly correct)
- show more 'Capitalists can never extol Capital better than Marx does.' (probably correct)
- 'Revolutionaries can never love chaos more than the Bourgeois.' (may be correct in-a-certain-sense)
- 'Professors of art history, in a discussion of 19th century literature, can never fill space on a page more than professors of Political Science.' (definitely correct ("So he’s not to have one single fault?"))
Regarding the remainder of the text:
On "Modernism:"
"What is hardly ever noticed is how the exposure of the same word [is] being used to conflate different concepts in order to make an argument succeed when it otherwise could not." — Mark Sandersshow less
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
culture
320 works; 1 member
Author Information
9+ Works 1,625 Members
Marshall Berman is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at City College of New York and CCNY Graduate Center.
Awards and Honors
Awards
Work Relationships
Is a commentary on the text of
Common Knowledge
- Original title
- All That Is Solid Melts Into Air : The Experience of Modernity
- Original publication date
- 1982
- People/Characters
- Baron Haussmann; Joseph Paxton; Jane Jacobs; Robert Moses; Karl Marx; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (show all 8); Charles Baudelaire; Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Quotations
- It is hard to reread these 1960s pastorals without feeling nostalgic sadness, not so much for the hippies of yesterday as for the virtually unanimous belief--shared by those upright citizens who most despised hippies--that a ... (show all)life of stable abundance, leisure and well-being was here to stay.
If we look behind the sober scenes that the members of the bourgeoisie create, and see the way they really work and act, we see that these solid citizens would tear down the world if it paid. ... . Their secret--a secret the... (show all)y have managed to keep even from themselves--is that, behind their facades they are the most violently destructive ruling class in history. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I believe that we and those who come after us will go on fighting to make ourselves at home in this world, even as the homes we have made, the modern street, the modern spirit, go on melting into air.
- Original language
- Inglese
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Literature Studies and Criticism, History, General Nonfiction, Art & Design, Philosophy
- DDC/MDS
- 909.82 — History & geography History World history 1800- 1900-1999, 20th century
- LCC
- CB425 .B458 — Auxiliary Sciences of History History of Civilization History of Civilization By period
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 1,291
- Popularity
- 18,907
- Reviews
- 13
- Rating
- (4.17)
- Languages
- 8 — English, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 26
- ASINs
- 9