{"product_id":"the-bullets-song-william-pfaff-9780684809076","title":"The Bullet's Song: Romantic Violence and Utopia","description":"\u003cb\u003eA hidden moral history of the twentieth century unfolds in William Pfaff's fascinating story of writers, artists, intellectual soldiers, and religious revolutionaries implicated in the century's physical and moral violence. They were motivated by romanticism, nationalism, utopianism -- and the search for transcendence. To our twenty-first century, already plunged -- once again -- into visionary terrorism and utopian quests, they leave a warning....\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The account begins with Italy's Futurists, who glorified war as \"the world's only hygiene\"; painted speed, action, and noise; invented \"found sound\" and chromatic pianos; thought violence sublime; and demanded \"reconstruction of the universe.\" \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eGabriele D'Annunzio, \u003c\/b\u003e poet, playwright, and nationalist buccaneer, created a revolutionary utopia in a Dalmatian city stolen in 1919 from Woodrow Wilson and the Versailles Treaty makers. In doing so, he invented the political style and rituals of Fascism, as well as Third World liberation. \u003cb\u003eT.E. Lawrence, \u003c\/b\u003e archaeologist and spy, guided the Arab revolt against the Turks, becoming both \"Uncrowned King of Arabia\" and masochist secular saint. \u003cb\u003eErnst Jünger, \u003c\/b\u003e artist and scientist, the German army's most decorated hero of World War I, made heroism a political ideology and became intellectual leader of the National Cause. Hitler was a follower. In World War II Jünger plotted Hitler's assassination and survived to become a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation. \u003cb\u003eWilli Münzenberg, \u003c\/b\u003e Lenin's propaganda genius and an original member of the Comintern, invented the political \"front\" organization, created the Sacco and Vanzetti case, and seduced a generation of \"innocents\" to the Communist cause before becoming a dissident himself. He wasstrangled by Soviet agents in a French forest. \u003cb\u003eAndré Malraux, \u003c\/b\u003e fantasist \"Byron of the 1930s,\" world-famous novelist, emulator of T.E. Lawrence, and make-believe leader of the Chinese revolution, discovered \"that daydreaming gives rise to action.\" He created and led an air squadron for Republican Spain, wrote himself into the script of the French Resistance as a hero -- and became one. \u003cb\u003eArthur Koestler, \u003c\/b\u003e the most famous scientific journalist in Europe, was a Comintern spy in Spain; condemned to death there, he abandoned the cause and wrote Darkness at Noon, the most influential anti-Communist work of its time, before committing suicide in 1976. \u003cbr\u003e Others with roles in The Bullet's Song are \u003cb\u003eBenito Mussolini, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Che Guevara, Charles de Foucauld, Simone Weil, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, \u003c\/b\u003e Europe's terrorists of the 1970s, and \u003cb\u003e\"Popski\"\u003c\/b\u003e -- Vladimir Peniakoff -- the honorable man who found happiness in leading his private army to war.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e William Pfaff\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0684809079\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780684809076\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Simon \u0026amp; Schuster\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/04\/2004\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 384\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.59lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.22h x 6.35w x 1.24d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e 05\/26\/2005 pg. 8\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 05\/01\/2005 pg. 1646\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/15\/2004 pg. 905\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 10\/04\/2004 pg. 79\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e 10\/15\/2004 pg. 369","brand":"William Pfaff","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":44120030740735,"sku":"9780684809076","price":57.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_b4275675-d537-4067-ace5-44ddc1016f4f.jpg?v=1687412188","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-bullets-song-william-pfaff-9780684809076","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}