In this brilliant work, Roberto Calasso cracks the code of what Baudelaire named the Modern--the increasingly murderous period from the French Revolution to the end of World War II. From Talleyrand"s France and the legendary African city of Kasch, to Lenin"s Russia and the killing fields of Cambodia, Calasso leads us along an enticing maze of mythology, literature, art, and science to the pulsing heart of civilization, where he deciphers the deepest secrets of history.