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E-book
Utopias: A Brief History from Ancient Writings to Virtual CommunitiesISBN: 978-1-118-23431-0
E-book
224 pages
March 2012, Wiley-Blackwell
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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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