Background for AtD, culture/politics dept.

[Monte Davis]

Two items that have fed productively into my thinking about AtD:

I've just re-read Barbara Tuchman's 1966 _The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the
World Before the War, 1890-1914_... popular history at the highest level,
essayistic chapters including one on anarchism, one on international
socialism as the war approached, and a brilliant set-piece on the arts --
"Neroism is in the Air" -- centered on Richard Strauss, with much to say
about the musical/operatic scene around the debut of Le Sacre du Printemps,
whether La Jarretiere really died or not. <Heh. he said "really">
    
In February I saw Tom Stoppard's _The Coast of Utopia_, a pleasure refreshed
by this fine appreciation in the New York Review of Books:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20220

Which has prompted me to buy it to read, too.   
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