THE CULT OF THE NEW MAN was not only a strong voice calling for the future but also a voice rejecting the recent past. It was a headlong flight into an imaginary, timeless, perfect realm in which all dirt, sickness, disorder, and degeneration would be overcome and replaced by hygiene, health, and wholeness. Depending on its author’s imagination, it was to be decorated either with sturdy oaks and classical ruins or with a blaze of electric light, glistening machines, and a vast ballet of mechanical perfection. In its emphasis on bodies that were to be both beautiful and strong, it was also a
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