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This chapter presents a picture of the German Army in the mid-1880s. At the apex was a gerontocracy headed by Kaiser William, Helmuth von Moltke, and 18 aging corps commanders whom the sentimental head of state refused to retire. Most of these elderly generals frowned on the prospect of wartime field duty. Army administrative leadership was increasingly divided, moreover, after the forced resignation of Kameke. These counterproductive divisions exacerbated already existing rivalries among the three main branches of the service. Cavalry, infantry, and artillery squabbles over military technology and appropriate tactical responses further divided the army against itself. It is significant that in all three branches, conservative factions managed to write their technophobic doctrines into regulations. Foreign military developments made Germany's drift toward antimodernism even more alarming. It was the French and the Russians, not the Germans, who blazed the trail of modern military technology in the 1880s and 1890s.

This chapter explains how Francis became familiar to American non-Catholics during the second half of the nineteenth century. It lays out contextual factors and broad cultural currents, most notably antimodernism and Protestants' ambivalent attraction to Catholicism. It then argues that Americans encountered Francis through the culturally significant channels of history, travel, art, and literature. It traces these encounters through landmark works and popular discussion. This chapter also traces the shifting images of Francis, as proto-Protestant, poet, artistic inspiration, image of Jesus, common man, and individualist. It concludes with a discussion of Paul Sabatier's 1893 biography, which associated Francis with social, economic, and religious critique. This text built on earlier work and set the tone for the twentieth century.

Bilgrami argues that Gandhi’s seeming antimodernism and radicalism can be reconciled through reference to the early modern European dissenting tradition, complicating the periodization of secularism and modernity.

This chapter explores the construction of Hunza's remoteness within the discourse of antimodernism. During the mid-twentieth century, a number of Western medical doctors and farmers visited the region, fascinated with the remarkably good health of the people of Hunza, which they attributed to the traditional methods of agriculture and food production that had flourished because of Hunza's isolation from the world. If Hunza's location earlier was seen as being on the margins of—and even beyond—civilization, it was now seen as a refuge from civilization and modern society. It was depicted as a rural utopia likened to the mythical city of Shangri-la. Aware of his diminishing power, the mir manipulated tourists'representation of his domain as remote by playing along in a hopeless effort to strengthen his position against the Pakistani state, whose own policies reinforced Hunza as remote, albeit being connected more with the mainstream society and economy.

This chapter examines the question of “modernism” as the subject of theological debate and ecclesiastical condemnation and in relation to contemporary literary life. It first considers the relationship between literary modernism and Catholic antimodernism before turning to a discussion of four sets of ideas that were central to the definition of modernism as well as to the debate over literary modernism and its relationship to Catholic literary aesthetics: individual/community, iconoclasm/orthodoxy, innovation/repetition, and openness/closure. It argues that in each case, in the early years of the flourishing of literary modernism, Catholicism was strongly associated with one term of the opposition and seemed poised to define itself at least in part by rejecting the other term. It also explains how literary discussions that sought an appropriate stance toward potentially dangerous or heretical ideas emerged as an important site of Catholic engagement with philosophical modernity.

This chapter argues that one of Jack London's most consistent concerns throughout his career was the place of the machine in modern life, and his engagements with the discourses of racial formation and socialism (and his complicated attempts to both reproduce and transcend them) are consistent with this technologically deterministic concern. London's vision of Asia/Pacific, in other words, was as much a product of his hopes and fears about modern technology as it was of any rigid, biological theories of racial difference. Indeed, when viewed through the prism of his concerns about the role of technology in late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century capitalism, London's seemingly contradictory characterizations of various Asian/Pacific people become much more coherent (if still firmly rooted in a racialized, Eurocentric worldview).

This chapter introduces the banjo as a means of exploring not only the methods and motivations of contemporary instrument builders, but also as an instrument with a history as a successful agent of antimodernism, a quality that remains significant within old-time musical circles. Banjo makers who cater to this community face constraints based on this conception, made evident in reference to iconic design elements from the banjo’s past, but are also successfully using this same antimodern tendency to expand knowledge of the instrument’s earliest history. This introductory chapter also describes the research methodology the author employed and the overall organization of the book, describing each of the following chapters in some detail.

This introductory chapter discusses how the nature-loving antimodernism of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was shaped by innumerable actors, including writers, painters, philosophers, pastors, politicians, architects, landscape architects, and others. Camping, the practice of living in a temporary shelter, has been present intermittently throughout human history, but only in recent times did it become an antimodern feature and socially approved custom of American culture. Military campaigns may require encampments, and unsettled, nonurban people may camp by necessity, but only a people who had become city dwellers would adopt this temporary retreat into the outdoors as an acceptable form of leisure. A key insight of this chapter is that recreational camping takes Americans away from their ordinary urban (or suburban) lives.

“Natural Environment as Refuge, Nurturer, Catalyst” places the notion of the summer camp in the broader context of societal ideas about people and nature, helping lay the groundwork for the social work profession’s involvement. Selected key events, concepts, and people impacting Americans’ view of the natural environment are highlighted. During the 19th century, as the United States became increasingly urban, writers and visual artists introduced Americans to the virtues of country life for health benefits, solace, and renewal. In the early 20th century, adherents of the conservation, back-to-nature, and antimodernism movements reacted to industrialization and urbanization. John Dewey and Jane Addams are referenced. Since the mid-20th century, a number of thinkers—scientists, historians, theologians, journalists—have turned their attention to issues related to people and the environment. Increasingly, social workers have examined the physical and natural environments as necessary components for understanding people holistically.