|  | Segal, Howard P.
Utopias
A Brief History from Ancient Writings to Virtual Communities
Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion
 1. Edition April 2012
25.90 Euro
2012. 304 Pages, Softcover
ISBN 978-1-4051-8328-4 - John Wiley & Sons
Also available as Hardcover. |
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| Detailed description
This brief history connects the past and present of utopian thought, from the first utopias in ancient Greece, right up to present day visions of cyberspace communities and paradise.
* Explores the purpose of utopias, what they reveal about the societies who conceive them, and how utopias have changed over the centuries
* Unique in including both non-Western and Western visions of utopia
* Explores the many forms utopias have taken - prophecies and oratory, writings, political movements, world's fairs, physical communities - and also discusses high-tech and cyberspace visions for the first time
* The first book to analyze the implicitly utopian dimensions of reform crusades like Technocracy of the 1930s and Modernization Theory of the 1950s, and the laptop classroom initiatives of recent years
From the contents
Preface xi
Introduction 1
1 The Nature of Utopias 5
Utopias Defined 5
Utopias Differ from both Millenarian Movements and Science Fiction 8
Utopias' Spiritual Qualities are Akin to those of Formal Religions 9
Utopias'Real Goal: Not Prediction of the Future but Improvement of the Present 12
How and When Utopias are Expected to be Established 13
2 The Variety of Utopias 16
The Global Nature of Utopias: Utopias are Predominantly but not Exclusively Western 16
The Several Genres of Utopianism: Prophecies and Oratory, Political Movements, Communities, Writings, World's Fairs, Cyberspace 24
3 The European Utopias and Utopians and Their Critics 47
The Pioneering European Visionaries and Their Basic Beliefs: Plato's Republic and More's Utopia 47
Forging the Connections Between Science, Technology, and Utopia 50
The Pansophists 53
The Prophets of Progress: Condorcet, Saint-Simon, and Comte 55
Dissenters from the Ideology of Unadulterated Scientific and Technological Progress: Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and William Morris 58
The Expansive Visions of Robert Owen and Charles Fourier 60
The "Scientific"Socialism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 66
4 The American Utopias and Utopians and Their Critics 74
America as Utopia: Potential and Fulfillment 74
The Pioneering American Visionaries and their Basic Beliefs in America as Land of Opportunity: John Adolphus Etzler, Thomas Ewbank, and Mary Griffith 78
America as "Second Creation": Enthusiasm and Disillusionment 81
5 Growing Expectations of Realizing Utopia in the United States and Europe 89
Later American Technological Utopians: John Macnie Through Harold Loeb 89
Utopia Within Sight: The American Technocracy Crusade 96
Utopia Within Reach: "The Best and the Brightest"--Post-World War II Science and Technology Policy in the United States and Western Europe and the Triumph of the Social Sciences 99
On Misreading Frankenstein: How Scientific and Technological Advances have Changed Traditional Criticisms of Utopianism in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 123
6 Utopia Reconsidered 139
The Growing Retreat from Space Exploration and Other Megaprojects 139
Nuclear Power: Its Rise, Fall, and Possible Revival--Maine Yankee as a Case Study 142
The Declining Belief in Inventors, Engineers, and Scientists as Heroes; in Experts as Unbiased; and in Science and Technology as Social Panaceas 157
Contemporary Prophets for Profit: The Rise and Partial Fall of Professional Forecasters 160
Post-colonial Critiques of Western Science and Technology as Measures of "Progress"169
7 The Resurgence of Utopianism 186
The Major Contemporary Utopians and Their Basic Beliefs 186
Social Media: Utopia at One's Fingertips 193
Recent and Contemporary Utopian Communities 194
The Star Trek Empire: Science Fiction Becomes Less Escapist 199
Edutopia: George Lucas and Others 203
The Fate of Books and Newspapers: Utopian and Dystopian Aspirations 217
8 The Future of Utopias and Utopianism 234
The "Scientific and Technological Plateau"and the Redefinition of Progress 234
Conclusion: Why Utopia Still Matters Today and Tomorrow 241
Further Reading 261
Index 269
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