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BK-WAGNERISM - ART AND POLITICS - Alex Ross

BK-WAGNERISM - ART AND POLITICS - Alex Ross

$ 40.00

A much-anticipated book and another log on the perpetually burning bonfire of Wagner studies by a phenomenally gifted critic, "Wagnerism - Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music" (a particularly revealing title) is an engrossing panopoly of erudite observations of the ideas and energy that flow from one composer. If you ever doubted that music could have such an enormous effect on the trajectory of history, read this book. (HB)

“A work of enormous intellectual range and subtle artistic judgment that pokes and probes the nerve endings of Western cultural and social norms as they are mirrored in more than a century of reaction to Wagner’s works. The book has its own 'Wagnerian' heft and ambitiousness of intent, being nothing less than a history of ideas that spans an arc from Nietzsche and George Eliot to Philip K. Dick, 'Apocalypse Now' and neo-Nazi skinheads . . . Ross has dug deep into some of the most fertile (and occasionally most bizarre) terrain of Western culture, examining and bringing to light the struggles for individuation and self-discovery of a host of reactive minds.” John Adams, The New York Times Book Review