Rites of Spring

Why it’s on the list: Eksteins reads the First World War through culture rather than strategy — starting from the riot at the premiere of The Rite of Spring — and argues modernity and the war produced each other.

Where I heard about it

• @typesfast’s thread — a reply to his question “What’s the best history book you’ve read?” in the thread, June 2025.

Connections

• What’s the best history book… (tweet) — the saved thread this recommendation came from.
• World War I · Culture · History — where this sits in the corpus.