Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create accountLimited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!
Nowโs a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weโll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Make the switchGift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingFracture
This audiobook uses AI narration.
Weโre taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreWhen the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell-shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: The old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief.
Historian Philipp Blom argues that in the aftermath of World War I, citizens of the West launched into hedonistic, aesthetic, and intellectual adventures of self-discovery. It was a period of both bitter disillusionment and visionary progress, in which artists, scientists, and philosophers grappled with the question of how to live and what to believe in a broken age. America closed its borders to European refugees and turned away from the desperate poverty caused by the Great Depression. On both sides of the Atlantic, disenchanted voters flocked to Communism and fascism, forming political parties based on violence and revenge that presaged the horror of a new World War.
Vividly re-creating this era of unparalleled ambition, artistry, and innovation, Blom captures the seismic shifts that defined the interwar period and continue to shape our world today.
The author of Fracture: Life and Culture in the West and The Vertigo Years, Philipp Blom was born in Hamburg in 1970. After studying in Vienna and Oxford, he worked in publishing as a journalist and translator in London and Paris. He lives in Vienna.
Born in one of the unlikeliest of places-on the desk of the British High Commissioner in New Delhi, India-native British stage and film actor Ralph Lister lives happily in whatever reality he finds himself. His Audie-nominated audiobook work and best actor awards for both stage and film (2011 Grand Award and 2014 Eclipse Award, respectively) have led him into the delightfully strange worlds of the many characters he embodies in voice. Ralph has narrated more than one hundred audiobooks and directed over a dozen others, across all genres, both fiction and nonfiction. Now a U.S. citizen, Ralph shares his time between his homes in Michigan and Los Angeles, where he also continues his passion for on-camera acting. Recent film credits include roles in OZ: The Great and Powerful, Setup, Alleged, and Mickey Matson and the Pirate's Code, and his television credits include a role on the AMC crime drama Low Winter Sun.