The Comet's Time: 1918 – The World Makes a Breakthrough

In the broader history of mankind, 1918 is a blazing flash like a comet. November 11, 1918 is not only the last day of the world war that threw the entire old order into the abyss. This day embodies the hopes that had been born for a better life. New possibilities flared up and new dreams followed—like the comet’s tail, a whole chain of pictures and faces stretches after them.

In the book by the well-known German historian Daniel Schönpflug (born 1969), this unique historical moment takes shape through a series of real destinies: Virginia Woolf, Harry S. Truman, Arnold Schoenberg, Mahatma Gandhi, Rudolf Hess, Ho Chi Minh, and many others.

The historian’s sharp eye helps to see in this colorful kaleidoscope of events the seeds of future triumphs and catastrophes. The book is both poetic and instructive: filled with the imagery of red poppies in the fields of Flanders, it teaches readers to recognize symptoms of the future in events that, at first glance, seem far from history.