Modern and Modernism: The Sovereignty of the Artist 1885-1925

Frederick Robert Karl. Atheneum Books, $14.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-689-70738-4

Modernist painters, writers, poets and composers are feared, maintains the author of Joseph Conrad: The Three Lives, because their creativity demands a reorientation of feeling and thinking that may threaten social cohesion. PW called this a ""brilliant, dense cultural history.'' Photos. (April)

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