Utopian Thought in the Western World
This masterly study has a grand sweep. It ranges over centuries, with a long look backward over several millennia. Yet the history it unfolds is primarily the story of individuals: thinkers and dreamers who envisaged an ideal social order and described it persuasively, leaving a mark on their own and later times.

The roster of utopians includes men of all stripes in different countries and eras—figures as disparate as More and Fourier, the Marquis de Sade and Edward Bellamy, Rousseau and Marx. Fascinating character studies of the major figures are among the delights of the book.

Utopian writings run the gamut from fictional narratives to theoretical treatises, from political manifestos to constitutions for a new society. The Manuels have structured five centuries of utopian invention by identifying successive constellations, groups of thinkers joined by common social and moral concerns. Within this framework they analyze individual writings, in the context of the author's life and of the socio-economic, religious, and political exigencies of his time. Concentrating on innovative works, they highlight disjunctures as well as continuities in utopian thought from the Renaissance through the twentieth century.

Witty and erudite, challenging in its interpretations and provocative in the questions it poses, the Manuels' anatomy of utopia is an adventure in ideas.

1100718522
Utopian Thought in the Western World
This masterly study has a grand sweep. It ranges over centuries, with a long look backward over several millennia. Yet the history it unfolds is primarily the story of individuals: thinkers and dreamers who envisaged an ideal social order and described it persuasively, leaving a mark on their own and later times.

The roster of utopians includes men of all stripes in different countries and eras—figures as disparate as More and Fourier, the Marquis de Sade and Edward Bellamy, Rousseau and Marx. Fascinating character studies of the major figures are among the delights of the book.

Utopian writings run the gamut from fictional narratives to theoretical treatises, from political manifestos to constitutions for a new society. The Manuels have structured five centuries of utopian invention by identifying successive constellations, groups of thinkers joined by common social and moral concerns. Within this framework they analyze individual writings, in the context of the author's life and of the socio-economic, religious, and political exigencies of his time. Concentrating on innovative works, they highlight disjunctures as well as continuities in utopian thought from the Renaissance through the twentieth century.

Witty and erudite, challenging in its interpretations and provocative in the questions it poses, the Manuels' anatomy of utopia is an adventure in ideas.

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Utopian Thought in the Western World

Utopian Thought in the Western World

Utopian Thought in the Western World

Utopian Thought in the Western World

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Overview

This masterly study has a grand sweep. It ranges over centuries, with a long look backward over several millennia. Yet the history it unfolds is primarily the story of individuals: thinkers and dreamers who envisaged an ideal social order and described it persuasively, leaving a mark on their own and later times.

The roster of utopians includes men of all stripes in different countries and eras—figures as disparate as More and Fourier, the Marquis de Sade and Edward Bellamy, Rousseau and Marx. Fascinating character studies of the major figures are among the delights of the book.

Utopian writings run the gamut from fictional narratives to theoretical treatises, from political manifestos to constitutions for a new society. The Manuels have structured five centuries of utopian invention by identifying successive constellations, groups of thinkers joined by common social and moral concerns. Within this framework they analyze individual writings, in the context of the author's life and of the socio-economic, religious, and political exigencies of his time. Concentrating on innovative works, they highlight disjunctures as well as continuities in utopian thought from the Renaissance through the twentieth century.

Witty and erudite, challenging in its interpretations and provocative in the questions it poses, the Manuels' anatomy of utopia is an adventure in ideas.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674931855
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 10/31/1979
Series: Belknap Press
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 912
Product dimensions: 6.50(w) x 9.88(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

Frank E. Manuel was Kenan Professor of History, Emeritus, at New York University and Alfred and Viola Hart University Professor, Emeritus, at Brandeis University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Utopian Propensity

PART I: The Ancient and Medieval Wellsprings

Paradise and the Millennium

The Golden Age of Kronos

The Great Transmission

PART II: The Birth of Utopia

The Passion of Thomas More

A Città Felice for Architects and Philosophers

Heaven on Earth for the Common Man

PART III: Flowering and Death of the Christian Utopia

Pansophia: A Dream of Science

Bruno, the Magus of Nola

Bacon, Trumpeter of New Atlantis

Campanella's City of the Sun

Andreae, Pastor of Christianopolis

Comenius and His Disciples

Topsy-Turvy in the English Civil War

The Sun King and His Enemies

Leibniz: The Swan Song of the Christian Republic

PART IV: Eupsychias of the Enlightenment

The Philosophes's Dilemma

The Monde Ideal of Jean-Jacques

Freedom from the Wheel

Turgot on the Future of Mind

Condorcet: Progression to Elysium

Kant: Beyond Animality

PART V: A Revolutionary Diptych

New Faces of Love

Equality or Death

PART VI: The Union of Labor and Love

The Battle of the Systems

Saint-Simon: The Pear Is Ripe

Children of Saint-Simon: The Triumph of Love

Fourier: The Burgeoning of Instinct

Owen's New Moral World

PART VII: Marx and Counter-Marx

Marx and Engels in the Landscape of Utopia

Comte, High Priest of the Positivist Church

Anarchy and the Heroic Proletariat

PART VIII: The Twilight of Utopia

Utopia Victoriana

Darwinism, the Ambiguous Intruder

Freudo-Marxism, a Hybrid for the Times

EPILOGUE: The Utopian Prospect

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

A magnificent achievement in the history of ideas, combining sharp historical analysis with vivid intellectual portraits and elegance of style.

Robert K. Merton

A masterwork of impeccable scholarship--brilliant, profound, extraordinarily wide-ranging, and altogether engrossing. Bound to be the definitive book on its complex subject for a long, long time.

Max Lerner

A magnificent achievement in the history of ideas, combining sharp historical analysis with vivid intellectual portraits and elegance of style.

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