Sovremennaya Amerika (Contemporary America) [Travelogue]

Print run 5,000 copies.

Good condition; replaced spine, book cover shows some soiling and creasing across corners, small closed horizontal tears on the wrappers along spine fold, bookstore stamp on the back wrapper; internally few occasional fingerprints.

The travelogue authored by well-known German-Jewish journalist, press secretary of the Prussian ministry during the Weimar Republic Hans Goslar (1889-1945) was first published in 1922 in Berlin under the title "Amerika 1922 (Eindrücke einer Studienreise)" [America 1922 (Impressions form the study trip)]. Arriving in New York on December 28, 1921, during his travels in the United States Goslar wrote articles about American life and then collected these in his travelogue. Strong impressions of America in the Roaring Twenties seen through European man eyes were quite contradictory – "…delighted wonder, respectful understanding, and terrible disappointment."

Russian edition in translation by Evgeniya Bak (1899 - 1968) includes foreword, whose author (hiding behind the initials I. N.) gives an opinion of Soviet man regarding the book partly critiing partly praising German author's observations and conclusions (who was neither communist and even nor socialist).

Book's eye catching avant-garde constructivist cover design in red, black and white created by graphic artist Vladimir Konstantinovich Izenberg (1895-1969). Collaborated with Raduga, Gosizdat and other publishing houses, producing remarkable avant-garde covers and book illustrations.