It was just a hundred years ago, but the events of 1922 reverberated throughout the 20th century and still affect us today. The Ottoman Empire collapsed after six centuries, while the British Empire, though at its greatest extent, began its long decline. The Soviet Union was created, and Mussolini made Italy the first fascist state. In the United States, Prohibition was at its height, radio was the new mass medium, and the Jazz Age had arrived. In his vividly written sketches, Nick Rennison conjures up an extraordinary year—we see T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and James Joyce's Ulysses published, the tomb of King Tut discovered, and Adolf Hitler's brief but formative imprisonment in Munich.