Document Type
Review
Abstract
[First paragraph]
A brutalist romp with a brain, Militant Modernism invokes early 1920s Russia and post-war Britain as nascent utopias. Written in a lively style, Owen Hatherley’s debut monograph bounces ideas off and nails them to the rough concrete walls of the many now desolate-looking destinations celebrated here at length. Starting out from his native Southampton, Hatherley blends sci-fi, Soviet sexualities, Brechtian alienation, local authorities and troublesome locales on both sides of the erstwhile Iron Curtain to put the case for an experimental social engineering, far removed from the domesticated modernism beloved of reputable European aesthetes. It’s not every day you read a subchapter devoted to ‘Wyndham Lewis as chav’. Underscored by a virtual soundtrack of references to post-punk industrial pop music and all the better for this energetic tone, Militant Modernism collides shades of Slavoj Žižek with Barrett Watten’s poetic treatment of Detroit techno in The Constructivist Moment (2003).
Repository Citation
Barnfield, Graham. "Review of Militant Modernism, by Owen Hatherley." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 9, no. 3, 2009, pp. 1–2. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol9/iss3/17