Degeneration

by Max Simon Nordau

"Degeneration" by Max Nordau is a two-volume work of social criticism published in 1892–1893. Nordau attacks what he considers degenerate art and analyzes late nineteenth-century social phenomena like rapid urbanization. Trained as a physician, he argues that degeneration is a mental illness requiring therapy, examining artists from Oscar Wilde to Richard Wagner as case studies. His controversial concept of "Degenerate Art" would later be seized upon by the Nazi Party, though critics like Sigmund Freud contested his theories.