Provides a much needed corrective to the misleading accounts of modernism that have dominated recent debate, shedding new light at the same time on the current controversies surrounding postmodernism.

Steve Giles is a lecturer in German and Critical Theory at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of The Problem of Action in Modern European Drama (1981).

1 THE PROBLEMATICS OF EUROPEAN MODERNISM 2 MACHINATIONS: SHOCK OF THE OLD, FEAR OF THE NEW-APOLLINAIRE AND ALBERTI 3 WYNDHAM LEWIS'S VORTICISM AND THE AESTHETICS OF CLOSURE 4 KURT MERZ SCHWITTERS: AESTHETICS, POLITICS AND THE NEGENTROPIC PRINCIPLE. AFTERWORD: AVANT-GARDE, MODERNISM, MODERNITY: A THEORETICAL OVERVIEW