Fin de Siecle/New Beginnings

The turn of the 20th to the 21st century provides an excellent vista for a look into the future and the past. The essays here deal with literary, cultural, economic and societal issues surrounding the onset of new millennia and centuries. This is an excellent book for an educated overview of what we can expect in the new century.

1999-2000 is looked at in depth, with additional material on the 1890s and 1000 AD. A cross-disciplinary approach allows literary interpretations to be analyzed from the standpoint of the social sciences and vice versa. The contributors were chosen not only for the quality of their individual work but for their capacity to offer unexpected new perspectives on a topical and much-debated theme.