Vienna, Richard Cockett
Vienna, Richard Cockett
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Vienna
How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World

Author: Richard Cockett

Narrator: Gareth Richards

Unabridged: 14 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/26/2023


Synopsis

How can one European capital be responsible for most of the West's intellectual and cultural achievements in the twentieth century?

Viennese ideas saturate the modern world. From California architecture to Hollywood Westerns, modern advertising to shopping malls, orgasms to gender confirmation surgery, nuclear fission to fitted kitchens—every aspect of our history, science, and culture is in some way shaped by Vienna.

The city of Freud, Wittgenstein, Mahler, and Klimt was the melting pot at the heart of a vast metropolitan empire. But with the Second World War and the rise of fascism, the dazzling coteries of thinkers who squabbled, debated, and called Vienna home dispersed across the world, where their ideas continued to have profound impact.

Richard Cockett gives us the entirety of this extraordinary story. Tracing Vienna's rich intellectual history from psychoanalysis to Reaganomics, Cockett encompasses everything from the communist rebels of Red Vienna to the neoliberal economists of the Austrian School. This is the panoramic account of how one city made the modern world—and how we all remain inescapably Viennese.

About Richard Cockett

Richard Cockett is a historian and journalist and a staff correspondent and senior editor at the Economist. He is the author of seven books and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeremy on December 09, 2023

Really interesting history of some of the major figures to come from 20th century Vienna. It discusses the Vienna Circle, which isn't so easy to describe. There were lots of "Vienna Circles", or groups of people that got together to discuss philosophy, physics, economics, etc. But there was an enorm......more

Goodreads review by Dennis on March 18, 2024

This is a rich history of ideas emanating from Vienna from the late 19th century to the present. Cockett presents a parade of thumbnail sketches of Viennese “influencers” both well-known and obscure, and ties it all together with a comprehensive narrative of the fortunes and misfortunes of Vienna in......more

Goodreads review by Chris on April 13, 2025

Lots of very interesting accounts of people and ideas, but I think it falls down in two ways. First, its incredible breadth means there are few readers that will find the whole book engaging, and second, sometimes it fails to convince that its character's actions (particularly in the post-Vienna exp......more

Goodreads review by Lucas on May 12, 2025

Probably one, if not the, best non-fiction book I've ever read. R. Chockett makes it so increadibly entertaining to dive into this book, because he just keeps on delivering on the countless examples of Viennese scientists, artists, politicians and, above all, children of Red Vienna that shaped the m......more

Goodreads review by Alain on September 21, 2024

an amazing history of ideas springing from the casual encounters only possible in a large multicultural city! What a wonderful book! The author is able to survey the fertile ideas of hundreds of thinkers and activists often opposed to each other, without being biased and taking sides! Crockett discus......more