| Edition |
First Edition |
| Phys Descr |
x, 346 pages ; 22 cm |
| Summary |
"For Erik Reece, life, at last, was good: he was newly married, gainfully employed, living in a creekside cabin in his beloved Kentucky woods. It sounded, as he describes it, "like a country song with a happy ending." And yet he was still haunted by a sense that the world--or, more specifically, his country--could be better. He couldn't ignore his conviction that, in fact, the good ol' USA was in the midst of great social, environmental, and political crises--that for the first time in our history, we were being swept into a future that had no future. Where did we--here, in the land of Jeffersonian optimism and better tomorrows--go wrong? Rather than despair, Reece turned to those who had dared to imagine radically different futures for America. What followed was a giant road trip and research adventure through the sites of America's utopian communities, both historical and contemporary, known and unknown, successful and catastrophic. What he uncovered was not just a series of lost histories and broken visionaries but also a continuing and vital but hidden idealistic tradition in American intellectual history. Utopia Drive is an important and definitive reconstruction of that tradition. It is also, perhaps, a new framework to help us find a genuinely sustainable way forward. "-- Provided by publisher |
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"Eric Reece, author of Lost Mountain and An American Gospel, traces the history of the utopian movement in America and lays out a radical re-visioning of the future of utopian societies"-- Provided by publisher |
| Note |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 343-346) |
| Contents |
Nonesuch (Woodford County, Kentucky) -- The new creation (Pleasant Hill, Kentucky) -- Monk's Pond (Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani Monastery: Bardstown, Kentucky) -- A beautiful failure (New Harmony, Indiana) -- A simple act of moral commerce (Cincinnati and Utopia, Ohio) -- How should people live? (Twin Oaks: Louisa, Virginia) -- A clearinghouse for dreams (Utopia Parkway: Queens, New York) -- The Pine Barrens anarchists (Modern Times: Long Island, New York) -- Hunger not to have but to be (Walden Pond: Concord, Massachusetts) -- Some heartbreak, much happiness (Oneida, New York) -- What if? (Niagara Falls, Canada) |
| Subject |
Utopian socialism -- United States -- History
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Utopias -- United States -- History
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Communitarianism -- United States -- History
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| OCLC # |
918995045 |
| ISBN # |
9780374106577 |
|
0374106576 |
|
