[1] Everdell, dean of humanities at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn Heights,[2] posits that Modernism first emerged in the field of mathematics rather than the arts, specifically in the work of the German mathematician Richard Dedekind, who, in 1872, demonstrated that mathematicians operate without a continuum.

This represents the formalization of Everdell's axiom of "ontological discontinuity", which he goes on to examine in a multiplicity of contexts.

He examines this emerging framework of discreteness in science (Ludwig Boltzmann's mechanics, Cajal's neuroscience, Hugo de Vries' conception of the gene and Max Planck's quantum work, Albert Einstein's physics), mathematics, logic and philosophy (Georg Cantor, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell and the linguistic turn, Husserl and the beginnings of phenomenology), in addition to the arts (James Joyce's novels, Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Schoenberg's 12-tone music).

Critics largely reviewed The First Moderns favorably, appreciating Everdell's interdisciplinary approach, in publications including the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.

[3] The Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Michael Dirda considers it among his "favorites".