When one picks up this book, as we do with all books, we ask: What is this book REALLY about? Among the choice subjects he includes Goethe's Faust, the vibrance of city streets, Marx and Engels in the examination of The Communist Manifesto (treated as a literary piece), the enigmatic Crystal Palace, Baudelaire, the Czars, Nietzsche and the whole hearted destruction of the inner cities such as the Bronx. It is a sort of eclectic mix that both confuses and informs. There are however a few glitches.... Berman, devotes much space to Czarist Russia as a case of 'modernism with underdevelopment' and somehow reduces the Soviet Regime as 'despotic, inquisitorial' and other such reductions to the point of contradicting his thesis of creative modernity. Maybe there is some comparison that can be drawn within the framework of this analysis to put Robert Moses and Stalin as figures of great destruction as opposed to builders of grand empires. In the end, all that is solid melts into air, and we are left more cultured. For those of us who have been dropped into (much to our confusion) into a deliberately cryptic and confusing postmodern world, this piece a vibrant introduction to modernity and should be used as a prime mover for much discussion of the troubles and wonders of modernity.

Miguel Llora

Berman weaves an intricate tale of Marxism and modernism. His text leaves out what I feel are important views and experiences, specifically gender, but despite this his work is thought provoking and valuable in understanding Marx's project.

Goethe and Marx, these are cardinal figures in the history of modernity. Goethe, the spiritual father of its grand visions and inexhaustible hope. Marx, the outsider, the witness to the sorcery of its soul and that of its organizing principle, Capital. His charge-- it is an artifice of progressively concentrating energy that will not be bound by any responsibility or shared purpose. The practical result is a constant breakdown of community and institutions as they are offered to the flame of re-invention. This is the core of the book's message. Nothing is permanent in the modernist domain. Art, city, ideals, country-- all are subsumed into new solids that immediately fracture and evaporate under pressure of another oncoming order, crashing in with waves of reorganization. The technologies of its own genius are its tools. The post-structural epoch is merely another phase of modernism's relentless push to incinerate the old and recreate society in its own frenzied image. Iconoclasm becomes the coordinating edict. The erasure of all cultural memory is implicit; moral purpose is desanctified; Capital's own ethos is elevated to the realm of faith.

Berman moves from the literary and intellectual movements of France and Russia into the streets. The building of St. Petersburg, with its imposed occidental face on Russia's traditionally oriental sensibilities, the boulevards of Paris's reconstruction of the 1870's, and the highways of the irrepressible Robert Moses-- the urban landscape has chronicled modernism's advance. The breadth of this thesis in choosing such disparate symbols to exemplify the progression is impressive, as is Berman's ability to synthesize them. When the book was written twenty years ago Communism had not yet collapsed, but its moral failure was evident, its material demise imminent. Berman's more romantic notions of a merging of modernism and Marxism, harnessing the creative impulse to popularly reasoned objectives, might have passed from any realistic possibility. His relationship with both is clearly one of fascination and alienation. All that seems to have gone down in flames, in annihilating contradictions, and, in the infinite actualization of modernism's belief in itself. It will tolerate no governance. A persistent anti- modernist insurgency, fragmented and cleaved onto disparate political structures, provides a cowed conscience at best. But with its illimitable dominion seemingly secure, Berman's proposal is thought provoking indeed-- that all of Marx's characterizations of its nature are true, and that no sustainable alternative has yet been conceived.

For some reason, I was expecting to read original essays on Marxism. Instead, what Berman's book contains is a collection of book reviews he's had published in an assortment of magazines and one, lengthy, original essay titled "All That Is Solid Melts Into Air," which Berman had already wrote an entire book on! Then, I found this humorous, he has an article attacking a reviewer who didn't entirely agree with the book's views on modernity. Berman's writing style is enjoyable to read and he is humorous, but over over and over again in this book, I kept reading the same passages from Marx's Manifesto and Capital in different reviews, which became slightly annoying. Overall, Berman is a good writer, and thanks to a few of Berman's book reviews, I have some more reading to do. But next time, I hope Berman has something original to say when he writes a book. I felt like the reviews in the book were put together just for the sake of having a book published.

This collection of essays provides instructive and sometimes critical insights into Marx's works and their implications in the modern context. Berman has produced an enjoyable read overall. I found it thought-provoking to say the least. I recommend the book for anyone interested in Marxist thinking, irrespective of one's political point-of-view.

Berman engages the reader through a fun romp through a variety of essays that span 50 years. A dialogue between Arthur Miller and the young Marx interplaying throughout the streets of New York City and discussions of modernity. Berman is brilliant at illuminating the culture which continues to feed a spirit of resistance, proving that the New Left, never really died but was crowded out by the New Right. Lays the basis for revitalized discourse for the next left.