Segal Utopias

A Brief History from Ancient Writings to Virtual Communities
Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-1-118-23431-0
Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten, E-Book

Reihe: Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion

This brief history connects the past and present of utopianthought, from the first utopias in ancient Greece, right up topresent day visions of cyberspace communities and paradise.
* Explores the purpose of utopias, what they reveal about thesocieties who conceive them, and how utopias have changed over thecenturies
* Unique in including both non-Western and Western visions ofutopia
* Explores the many forms utopias have taken - propheciesand oratory, writings, political movements, world's fairs, physicalcommunities - and also discusses high-tech and cyberspacevisions for the first time
* The first book to analyze the implicitly utopian dimensions ofreform crusades like Technocracy of the 1930s and ModernizationTheory of the 1950s, and the laptop classroom initiatives of recentyears

Autoren/Hrsg.

Segal, Howard P.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface xi
Introduction 1
1 The Nature of Utopias 5
Utopias Defined 5
Utopias Differ from both Millenarian Movements and ScienceFiction 8
Utopias' Spiritual Qualities are Akin to those of FormalReligions 9
Utopias'Real Goal: Not Prediction of the Future but Improvementof 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 notExclusively 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 Critics47
The Pioneering European Visionaries and Their Basic Beliefs:Plato's Republic and More's Utopia 47
Forging the Connections Between Science, Technology, and Utopia50
The Pansophists 53
The Prophets of Progress: Condorcet, Saint-Simon, and Comte55
Dissenters from the Ideology of Unadulterated Scientific andTechnological Progress: Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and WilliamMorris 58
The Expansive Visions of Robert Owen and Charles Fourier 60
The "Scientific"Socialism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels66
4 The American Utopias and Utopians and Their Critics74
America as Utopia: Potential and Fulfillment 74
The Pioneering American Visionaries and their Basic Beliefs inAmerica as Land of Opportunity: John Adolphus Etzler, ThomasEwbank, and Mary Griffith 78
America as "Second Creation": Enthusiasm and Disillusionment81
5 Growing Expectations of Realizing Utopia in the UnitedStates and Europe 89
Later American Technological Utopians: John Macnie ThroughHarold Loeb 89
Utopia Within Sight: The American Technocracy Crusade 96
Utopia Within Reach: "The Best and theBrightest"--Post-World War II Science and Technology Policy inthe United States and Western Europe and the Triumph of the SocialSciences 99
On Misreading Frankenstein: How Scientific and TechnologicalAdvances have Changed Traditional Criticisms of Utopianism in theTwentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 123
6 Utopia Reconsidered 139
The Growing Retreat from Space Exploration and OtherMegaprojects 139
Nuclear Power: Its Rise, Fall, and Possible Revival--MaineYankee as a Case Study 142
The Declining Belief in Inventors, Engineers, and Scientists asHeroes; in Experts as Unbiased; and in Science and Technology asSocial Panaceas 157
Contemporary Prophets for Profit: The Rise and Partial Fall ofProfessional Forecasters 160
Post-colonial Critiques of Western Science and Technology asMeasures 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 Escapist199
Edutopia: George Lucas and Others 203
The Fate of Books and Newspapers: Utopian and DystopianAspirations 217
8 The Future of Utopias and Utopianism 234
The "Scientific and Technological Plateau"and the Redefinitionof Progress 234
Conclusion: Why Utopia Still Matters Today and Tomorrow 241
Further Reading 261
Index 269

Über Autor(innen)

Howard P. Segal is Bird Professor of History at the University of Maine, where he has taught since 1986. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University. His previous books include Technological Utopianism in American Culture (1985), Future Imperfect: The Mixed Blessings of Technology in America (1994), Technology in America: A Brief History (1989, 1999, with Alan Marcus), and Recasting the Machine Age: Henry Ford's Village Industries (2005). He also reviews for, among other publications, Nature and the Times Higher Education.