War of Return

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was, twice over and in two separate areas, one of the most renowned musical figures of the 20th century. Beginning at age seven, he was a celebrated performing prodigy, with a level of technical development and an understanding of music that awed such giants of the musical world as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, who delighted in his prodigious talent. Greeted in such circles as a new Mozart, from his teens until his thirties Korngold was the author of a series of compositions – orchestral works, operas (most notably Die Tote Stadt), and chamber works – that were uniquely popular and among the most critically acclaimed of their era.

As Maoism recedes, and especially after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Beijing has increasingly turned to patriotic nationalism for its ideological inspiration and legitimation. Return of the Dragonbegins with a discussion of the concept and theory of nationalism.