The dizzying years

The Great Changes in the Western World, 1900–1914 Europe, early 20th century: a world adrift, a vibrant era of creativity and contradictions, grappling with issues such as terrorism, globalization, immigration, consumerism, the collapse of moral values, and the rivalry between superpowers. The 20th century was not born in the trenches of the First World War, but in the fifteen dizzying years that preceded it. In this short period, a new world order emerged, in tragic contradiction to the old. These were the years in which the political and individual repercussions of the Industrial Revolution were felt throughout the world: cities grew like never before as people fled the countryside and their traditional identities; science created new possibilities, but also new nightmares; education changed the perceptions of millions of people; and women sought to change their place in society. From the tremendous anticipation of a new century embodied in the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900 to the assassination of a Habsburg archduke in Sarajevo in 1914, Philipp Blom chronicles this extraordinary era year by year. Prime ministers and peasants, anarchists and actresses, scientists and psychopaths mingle on the stage of a new century, in this portrait of an opulent and unstable era on the brink of disaster.