All Things New: American Communes and Utopian Movements, 1860-1914 - Hardcover

Fogarty, Robert S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226256545 ISBN 13: 9780226256542

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1990

Synopsis

From the seventeeth to the twentieth century America has been both a haven for utopian dreamers and a fertile ground for experiments in community. In All Things New, Robert S. Fogarty provides the first comprehensive study of a neglected chapter in the history of American utopian and communal experiments. Countering the view that utopianism declined dramatically after the 1840s, Fogarty uncovers a wealth of utopian experiments across the United States from 1860 to 1914. He examines 125 communities and their leaders, ranging from the secular and entrepreneurial to the mystical and charismatic. These engrossing tales of communes gain both authority and vitality from exhaustive research in primary sources, including newspapers, journals, and letters, and from the inclusion of historic photographs of colonists and prophets. Fogarty's arguments reflect recurrent cultural forces in American history, as he defines new territory in the history of utopian and communal movements.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert S. Fogarty is Professor of History at Antioch College.

Review:

In this book Robert Fogarty, a distinguished student of American communal groups, offers a rich series of narrative tours of an important, yet neglected, era in our communal history. Reading these pages is like watching clusters of undulating historical mirrors. At times the actors and actresses reflect fascinating but distroted images of their period. Then, from a slightly different angle, we see that the images can teach us much about how Americans were reacting to some confusing transformations that still affect us today. (Kenneth Roemer, University of Texas, Arlington)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0226256545
• ISBN 13: 9780226256542
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 294