REVIEWS 561 BogusławSchäfferformsanimportantcasestudyforthebook,asacomposercritic who divided opinions: crucially, he ‘was not eager to adapt lack language as the foundation for an aesthetic program because he rejected the notion that catching up could be achieved by imitating an external example’ (p. 119). From Schäffer’s obsession with experiment for experiment’s sake, a younger generation took up the mantle to eventually be proclaimed the Polish avantgarde group (including Górecki and Krzysztof Penderecki). In the context of recent studies (see especially, Jakelski, Making New Music in Cold War Poland: The Warsaw Autumn Festival, 1956–1968, Oakland, CA, 2016), Vest achieves an impressive new contextualization for Polish music: that the actual discourse was composer-led, with multiple agents debating what ‘modernity’ meant to their particular situation. The book is well-suited for a non-specialist readership, though music analysts might prefer to have had more in-depth appraisals of key works. Music examples help to illustrate Vest’s argument, particularly with the more visual scores of the later avant-garde group. Perhaps the most revealing message of Awangarda is its illustration of just how much Western scholars have reinforced Cold War stereotypes in their writing on Polish music: since this detailed study will surely be required reading for any scholar on the subject, I would hope that such attitudes will be put to rest in future. Royal Holloway, University of London Daniel Elphick Kohlrausch, Martin. Brokers of Modernity: East Central Europe and the Rise of Modernist Architects, 1910–1950. Leuven University Press, Leuven, 2019. 399 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. €55.00; open access e-book. A review of this book must begin with the problems of the title: ‘East Central Europe’ is very misleading as the book is devoted entirely to Poland, with the occasional brief comparison with matters in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The long table of contents does not make this situation clear either. The list of periodicals consulted cites exclusively Polish and Western titles. Taking something like the author’s own position on this, one could claim that the very broadly ventilated issues relating to Modernism would apply to all the new East European states in like manner. Much is made of Polish international contacts, the membership of the CIAM (Congress International d’Architecture Moderne)andthepersonalrelationshipsbetweenitsmembersandLeCorbusier in particular; but all this is far from sufficient to justify the exclusion of Poland from the title. SEER, 99, 3, JULY 2021 562 The use of ‘the term ‘brokers’ in the book’s title is intended ‘to evoke a group at the interface of state and society, a group which negotiated Modernity from a central position as a new reality and a desirable goal’. Martin Kohlrausch holds that ‘the architects [in Poland] were ‘almost sought out by society as epitomes of modernity’ (pp. 25, 26). Indeed, architectural Modernism appeared to suit the new and aspiring post-1918 nation states particularly well, with Warsaw appearing especially ‘mouldable’ (p. 209), especially when the ‘Plan Warszawa Funkjonalna’ was formulated in the early 1930s. Kohlrausch studiously avoids what one may call a monographic approach: there is no comprehensive, detailed and rounded treatment of the issues. There are patches of greater detail, for example, on the workings of state patronage, on the processes of professionalization, on journals and on the planning for Warsaw which includes information about the relatively benevolent German regime during World War One. Kohlrausch eschews any kind of a more detailed biographical approach, stressing, instead, the task of evaluating group work, chiefly by Syrkus, Lachert and Brukalski. Furthermore, he underlines that the book is not about buildings as such, though there are good number of illustrations, for example of the 1929 Poznań Exhibition, which have so far not been overused. Furthermore, the author did not see it as his task to take on board recent Polish historical investigations. Regarding the crucial question as to who and what exactly should come under Modernist architecture it appears that Kohlrausch is interested only in the most narrowly circumscribed circle of International Style protagonists. How then does one characterize the author’s approach? It consists chiefly of an array of general perceptions, conducted freely and discursively from a seemingly elevated position, which is meant to...