Modris EKSTEINS, born in Latvia in 1943, is Professor of History at the University of Toronto at Scarborough. The Rite of Spring: The Great War and the birth of modern times has been translated into several languages and won the Trillium Award and Wallace K. Ferguson Prize Canadian Historical Association, among other distinctions. His book Walking since Daybreak (Walking from dawn), Pearson won the essay prize. He lives in Toronto.

"Modris Eksteins conveys impressively the terrible experience of trench warfare and explains why it changed so radically psychology in Europe. Just for that achievement, The Rite of Spring enter and occupy its preferred site in the same library shelf that holds the Great War and modern memory by Paul Fussell and the face of battle, by John Keegan. " New York Times