BERLIN ON THE BRINK OF MODERNITY In 1920, the Greater Berlin Act expanded the Berlin's borders to their present state, doubling its population and increasing its area by a factor of 13. In 1919, on the eve of that change, Arthur Eloesser published a series of essays examining the evolving concept of urbanity, and the rapidly growing metropolis of Berlin. The essays presented here are elegant examples of the developing modern consciousness, and documentation of Berlin becoming the city we know today.
Arthur Eloesser was born in 1870 to a Jewish family in Berlin. He gained renown as a critic and literary historian. After the Nazis seized power he was forced to find work at the Jewish weekly Jüdischer Rundschau, and helped initiate the Jüdischer Kulturbund, a help organization for Jewish artists and writers. He died of natural causes in 1938.
