1915, the Cultural Moment: The New Politics, the New Woman, the New Psychology, the New Art & the New Theatre in America

The papers in this excellent collection focus on more than the year 1915, a pivotal one in American theatrical history. Indeed, the contributors, primarily academics in history, American studies and other fields, trace much of the period's turmoil--in the arts, politics, psychology--back to the previous century and forward to the early 1920s. The era's progressive movements, the editors argue, set the cornerstone for much of what followed, from the New Deal to the civil rights movement, and forreplace with ``and'' sg the burgeoning of modernism in the arts. Heller (who edited the reissue of Time and the Town ) and Rudnick ( Mabel Dodge Luhan ) have effectively drawn together such diverse threads as Freud's lectures at Clark University, the 1913 Armory Show, the rise to prominencestet of Marcus Garvey and the early work of Eugene O'Neill. The book is particularly valuable for reclaiming such figures as black socialist Hubert Harrison, Chinese American author Sui Sin Far and feminist Neith Boyce. This is essential reading for Well- written and informative, this collec tion is essential for anyone interested in 20th-century American intellectual and cultural history. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Dec.)