Their Common Sense

At first glance, Their Common Sense looks like a social history of early abstract art, but critic Molly Nesbit quickly goes beyond, turning this feast for the eyes and the mind into an exploration of the genesis of mass culture. Taking the period between 1880 and 1925 as her subject, Nesbit links the emergence of modernism with universal education in public schools, asking basic questions about the consequences of an education. In Their Common Sense, the author tackles problems often discussed by contemporary theorists, but she has a way of expressing them that keeps historical voices alive, spoken, still beautiful, still subversive. With moments of poetry, aphorism and theater, this is a book conceived to be seen as well as read.