The Fin-de-Siècle World ed. by Michael Saler (review)

This reviewer sympathizes with Dr. Saler when he laments that "his short Introduction can only generalize, at the risk of oversimplification, about a few of the overarching features of the" fin-de-siècle (p. 3). In the 761 pages of this book, there are 45 chapters, divided among 8 parts, written by 47 authors, not including the editor. He is a professor of Modern European intellectual and cultural history at the University of California, Davis. There are also 52 figures (paintings, illustrations, photos), and two maps, both relating to colonial possessions in Africa during the "Scramble" for that continent. It is one of the 39 volumes published to date in the Routledge World series.

In his introduction, Saler describes the approach taken by the authors in this volume as belonging to the third "wave" of writings (both scholarly and popular) about the fin-de-siècle. The First Wave began when the term, fin-de-siècle, first caught on after being used as the title of a French play in 1888. Within a decade it had become a generational catchword for those who rejected most of late Victorianism and were drawn to the aesthetic modernism clearly recognizable by the century's end. There was some debate over to what years the fin-de-siècle referred. That is, when did this aesthetic transformation occur—only in the 1890s, 1890sto 1914, or the 1880s (or even 1870s) to 1914? There was a general consensus, however, that it was confined to Europe and North America, with its epicenters in London and Paris.

The Second Wave began after the Great War, when most scholars took the position that the fin-de-siècle was from 1870 to 1914, and that it should be viewed not just as an aesthetic movement distinctive from the Victorian era, but a much broader "socio-cultural moment within the larger story of Western 'modernity'" (p. 2). The period was now seen as much more complex than earlier. Cultural movements such as Impressionism, Decadence, Symbolism, or Naturalism, the subjects of First Wave writers, were now thought to have expressed, and fostered, wider changes in all areas of life—economic, political, religious, intellectual, social, and scientific—in turn-of-the-century North America and Europe.

The Third Wave, represented by World in this volume's title, takes as its premise that the fin-de-siècle requires a global approach, not limited to Europe and North America. The authors in this volume are describing the transnational character of the period, an age of New Imperialism, trans-oceanic communications and transport networks, large migrations, the rise of mega-cities that were increasingly more multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, the wider diffusion of mass production and mass culture, and scientific discoveries that affected all the world's people, as is their nature, not just Europeans and North Americans.

Moreover, Third Wave writings situate all human activity and endeavor within this understanding of the fin-de-siècle as a global phenomenon, not just aesthetics. A brief listing of the book's eight different parts reflects this. Part 1, devoted to five essays presenting in broad strokes the period and its historiography, is followed by "Places," where the fin-de-siècle in the obvious countries is discussed—France, Great Britain, Russia, Canada, and the United States—but also how it played out in Japan, China, Latin America, the Middle East, India, and Africa. Part 3 is on the politics of the age—New Nationalism, New Imperialism, and "Higher Individualism." Part 4 focuses on Mass Culture, with essays on publishing, rapid transport, and consumer culture and advertising. In Part 5, "Disciplines," revolutionary discoveries in the sciences, in our understanding of the universe and of ourselves, and the global spread of that knowledge are discussed. One need to look no further than this part, and to reflect on the transformations in each of these fields of knowledge—universities...