Vernacular Modernism ─ Heimat, Globalization, And The Built Environment

In seven contributions, US and European historians many of art or architecture dispute the notion that the difference of place called the vernacular was an inevitable victim of spatial modernization, and suggest that despite its virtual absence from theory of the modern, the vernacular lived on as a strong subcurrent of modern praxis. They point out the role of the vernacular in some of modernity's characteristic sites and buildings, both real and imagined. Editors Hüppauf (German, New York U.) and Umbach (modern European history, U. of Manchester, UK) provide an introduction in which they discuss the meaning of the "dubious concept embodied in the German word Heimat (native place)." Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Maiken Umbach teaches modern European history at the University of Manchester (UK). She is the author of Federalism and Enlightenment in Germany, 1740-1806 (2000) and German Federalism: Past, Present, Future (2002). Bernd Huppauf is Professor of German at New York University. Among his numerous publications in German and English are Globalization and the Future of German (2004), Skepsis und literarische Einbildungskraft (2003), War, Violence, and the Modern Condition (1997).