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Karl Kraus

The Last Days of Mankind: The Complete Text

The Last Days of Mankind: The Complete Text

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Karl Kraus' The Last Days of Mankind is a powerful satire of the glory of war, now available in English for the first time. The play enacts the tragic trajectory of the First World War, exposing the horrors of modern warfare and the consequences of bungled diplomacy, greed, and the press. Bertolt Brecht hailed it as the masterpiece of Viennese modernism.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 672 pages
Publication date: 28 March 2023
Publisher: Yale University Press


Karl Kraus, an Austrian satirist, wrote his renowned play, The Last Days of Mankind, a scathing critique of war's glorification, over a century ago. Despite the passing of time, this powerful work remains as relevant as the day it was first published. Krauss's play vividly portrays the tragic course of the First World War, as humanity blindly pursued self-destruction through modern warfare, while blindly praising the glory and disregarding the horrifying realities of an allegedly "defensive" conflict. This volume marks the first complete English translation of Krauss's towering masterpiece, filling a significant gap in the accessibility of Viennese literature from the era of the War to End All Wars.

Renowned playwright Bertolt Brecht praised The Last Days as the pinnacle of Viennese modernism. In this apocalyptic drama, Kraus skillfully weaves together a textual collage, incorporating actual quotations from the Austrian army's call to arms, the responses of the people, political speeches, newspaper editorials, and a diverse range of other sources. He infuses the play with comic inventiveness and satirical verse, exposing the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire through the mishandling of diplomacy, the avarice of profiteers, the complicity of Big Business, the gullibility of news readers, and, most notably, the pervasive sloganization of the press. Through the dramatization of sensationalized news reports, the numbing of atrocities, and the embrace of war as a solution, contemporary readers can hear the echoes of the fateful voices Kraus recorded as his homeland plunged into self-destruction.

Weight: 812g
Dimension: 152 x 231 x 36 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780300271171

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