The Pentecost of Calamity

by Owen Wister

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Nonfiction

148 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1915

About the author

Owen Wister was born on July 14, 1860, in Germantown, a neighborhood within the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Owen Jones Wister, was a wealthy physician, one of a long line of Wisters raised at the storied Belfield estate in Germantown. His mother, Sarah Butler Wister, was the daughter of actress Fanny Kemble.
Education
He briefly attended schools in Switzerland and Britain, and later studied at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was a classmate of Theodore Roosevelt, an editor of the Harvard Lampoon and a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon (Alpha chapter). Wister graduated from Harvard in 1882.
At first he aspired to a career in music, and spent two years studying at a Paris conservatory. Thereafter, he worked briefly in a bank in New York before studying law, having graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1888. Following this, he practiced with a Philadelphia firm, but was never truly interested in that career. He was interested in politics, however, and was a staunch Theodore Roosevelt backer. In the 1930s, he opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.
Writing career
Wister had spent several summers out in the American West, making his first trip to Wyoming in 1885. Like his friend Teddy Roosevelt, Wister was fascinated with the culture, lore and terrain of the region. On an 1893 visit to Yellowstone, Wister met the western artist Frederic Remington; who remained a lifelong friend. When he started writing, he naturally inclined towards fiction set on the western frontier. Wister's most famous work remains the 1902 novel The Virginian, the loosely constructed story of a cowboy who is a natural aristocrat, set against a highly mythologized version of the Johnson County War and taking the side of the large land owners. This is widely regarded as being the first cowboy novel and was reprinted fourteen times in eight months.[5] The book is dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt.
Personal life
In 1898, Wister married Mary Channing, his cousin.The couple had six children.
Wister's wife died during childbirth in 1913, as Theodore Roosevelt's first wife had died giving birth to Roosevelt's first daughter, Alice.
Wister died at his home in Saunderstown, Rhode Island. He is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.

Reviews

[Sotiris Makrygiannis · Rating 4 out of 5]

One needs to know history to avoid repeating the same mistakes or intentionally re create the nightmares of the past; why do we always assume good intentions from the educated ones?

This is about the start of WW1, and it starts with a description of Germany that fits my understanding of 2022. That gorgeous country, the fantastic nature and landscapes that everything has symmetry, planned and designed with perfect calculations. Super clean and romantic, but still, a duality in the German soul is hard to explain. The author praises Germany, as I do, as a perfect country to live in, but then it starts the hate. Not by him but from Kaiser speeches, he uses Shakespear, to be or not to be, to go one and claim that all rest are fake and Germans are the only pure.

Here we see the influence of Nietzsche with his superhuman concepts. The Germans adopted the Superhuman (übermenschlich), the super race and subsequently, the super nation. Logically that is what you conclude if you read Nietzsche; superhumans can only come from the fantastic race and probably live in a supernation that subsequently needs living space (Lebensraum, the reason behind ww2). That is the logic that one should apply when reading Nietzsche; he replaced God with a new holy trinity for them, as described above.

Germans were so excited with their modern-era philosopher; to be fair, some liked Marx (german jew) as well, but then Jews couldn't be superrace. Therefore, the philosophical battle went to a brand new level: ovens.

Germans are not one thing; there is also Prussia, the part of Germany mixed with Russia. The Teutonic orders Christianized the Baltics and married Russian aristocrats. It seems that those are a bit more aggressive than the rest. Their empire-building mindset, aristocracy and high education made them the perfect generals. They, from my point of view, started the problem and hope are obvious how few well educated could become demagogues of a whole nation, in this case, by spreading the concepts of Nietzsche very much.

I found in this book that Churchill's saying that we needed to bomb Germany every 20 years was not his thought. In this book, it is every 200 years that Germans must be destroyed to maintain peace in Europe. The idea finds me against it, but surely something needs to happen with the Education of the Germams, perhaps to be less judgmental about the imprefections of others? Maybe to insert in the Apollonian thinking a bit of Dionysius' lifestyle? Nietzsche said that in his book, but most of them skipped that paragraph.

An excellent book for the start of ww1, watch out the Prussian is the conclusion.

[Robert Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lucid, prescient for today's and any day's rise of militarism and single-sighted propaganda. Published 1915, very interesting insights into the pivotal years at the beginning of WWI. Quick and rewarding read.

[Denise Ballentine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slim volume of ruminations about WWI written in 1915. Interesting for history buffs.
I read this because I have owned an original 1915 copy for many years. I found a free version for my Kindle, which I used because the old book is rather fragile. Just a quick diversion. But now I know what's in it.

[PSXtreme · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting snapshot of Germany/Europe from the end of the 19th century thru the early 20th. A worthwhile endeavor for anyone interested in that era.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

You have to read Chapter XI many times it's so shocking Written in crisp style it lays out everything that led to WWI and then WWII