For some, the last decades of the 19th c. were the fin de siècle (the end of the century), a term that could serve as adjective or noun and suggested a civilization in collapse under the pressure of new social developments and political pressures. The Hungarian journalist Max Nordau dubbed the age a time of “degeneration.” For others, especially, in the aftermath of the First World War, the prewar years were the Belle Époque (the good old days), a time of technological marvels, cultural splendors, and a rising standard of living.

We can see echoes of both views in sources from the time. It is simply a question of where to look. Watch film of the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900 – with its palace of electricity, moving sidewalks, and enormous Ferris wheel – for a bright view on the era. Among other things, you will catch glimpses of colonial subjects and colonial expositions that provide a sense for the European view of empire in this period. Jack London provides a contemporary view of the development of European civilization in The People of the Abyss (1902), his account of the working class of London. You can find both sides of the coin in turn-of-the-century Budapest and Vienna. Darker still are accounts of the genocide of the Herero and Namaqua peoples of German Southwest Africa in the first years of the 20th c. (sometimes dubbed the first genocide of the 20th c.) or contemporary accounts of the brutal regime of the Congo Free State.