For an insightful look backwards, I recommend Stefan Zweig’s memoir, The World of Yesterday. Zweig (1881-1942) was a contemporary of Rudolf Laban (1879-1958). Both were born and educated in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and both became artists – Zweig as a popular writer in the 1920s and 1930s; Laban as a leading dancer during the same period.
In his final book, written in 1942, Zweig provides a first-person description of peaceful European culture before the first world war and the subsequent violent disruptions of the war, the rise of fascism, and the beginning of the second world war.… Read More