Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times - Softcover

Kumar, Krishan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0631167145 ISBN 13: 9780631167143

Publisher: Blackwell Pub, 1991

Synopsis

This study focuses on the latest phase of the literary tradition of utopia, from the 19th century to the present, in Europe and America. It aims to show how modern versions of utopia and anti-utopia engage in debate about the future of modern society, and especially the role of socialism and science within it. The book asks whether socialism will lead to freedom and fulfillment or to tyranny and conformity, and whether will science free us or enslave us.

About this title

From Library Journal:

As Kumar notes, neither histories of utopian thought nor close discussions of utopian fictions are particularly rare. This book seeks to be different by combining sociohistorical intellectual analysis of utopian and dystopian ideas with interrelated discussions of five texts ( Looking Backward, A Modern Utopia, Brave New World, 1984, Walden Two ). The total effect is curious, the whole exceeding the sum of the parts. There is not a lot of "new" information here (and whether more ever needs to be written about Huxley's book or Orwell's is open to debate), but the kind of immersion into concept it affords does yield a new "understanding." The book is well reasoned and supported, the prose serviceable. Of interest to Huxley/Orwell followers, as well as to a limited general audience and term-paper writers. Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Blackwell Pub
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0631167145
• ISBN 13: 9780631167143
• Binding: Paperback