Utopias and the Millenium

Krishan Kumar, Stephen Bann, Stephen Bann, Krishan Kumar

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780948462443
  9780948462450
• eBook ISBN:
  9781861896940
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Utopia has always had a close, though ambivalent, relationship with millennialism. This relationship was probably at its most intense in England at the time of the Civil War; even when utopia aspired to secularism - as at the time of the French Revolution, or in nineteenth-century socialism - it continued to turn to millenial forms to recharge its energies.

The essays in this book explore aspects of this relationship; some consider their role in the debate concerning human perfectability, while others examine the rise of secularism. Further contributions reflect upon the apparent failure of the modern Communist utopia, note the recent reappearance of apocalyptic themes in fiction and social theory, or draw on the contributions of feminism and ecology. As our century ends, it seems that utopia and the millenium are once more locked in an uneasy embrace.

Table of contents

• Utopias and the Millennium Cover
• Imprint page
• Contents
• Notes on the Editors and Contributors
• Introduction
• 1: The Frontiers of Utopia
• 2: Formal Utopia / Informal Millennium: The Struggle between Form and Substance as a Context for Seventeenth-century Utopianism
• 3: From Robinson to Robina, and Beyond: Robinson Crusoe as a Utopian Concept
• 4: Utopianism, Property, and the French Revolution Debate in Britain
• 5: The End of Socialism? The End of Utopia?The End of History?
• 6: The Metamorphosis of the Apocalyptic Myth: From Utopia to Science Fiction
• 7: 'Politics Here is Death': William Burroughs's Cities of the Red Night
• 8: Utopia the Good Breast: Coming Home to Mother
• 9: McTopia: Eating Time
• References
• Select Bibliography
• Index