cover image Rites of Spring

Rites of Spring

Modris Eksteins. Anchor Books, $14.95 (416pp) ISBN 978-0-385-41202-5

``In a trailblazing, iconoclastic work of cultural history, Eksteins links the modern avant-garde's penchant for primitivism, abstraction and myth-making to the protofascist ideology and militarism unleashed by WW I,'' reported PW . ``This provocative and disturbing reappraisal of modernism rings with authority.'' Photos. (Apr.)