Historical Dictionary of Utopianism [Hardcover]

...a useful compilation that the audience for which it is designed will find helpful in many aspects of their studies....a good reference work and deserves recognition as such...A very brief history of utopianism occupies the book's dozen and a half pages of front matter. Even at its most brief, this brief for utopia is instructive and readers will do well not to omit it. Following this comes the book's major feature: an alphabetic list of people, movements, societies, associations, and more. Entries, more than 600 in all, cover everything from the earliest times, to the Shakers and the Oneidas of U.S. soil, to those of the most recent Far East conflicts. A list of utopias, their locations, and duration closes out the book.Recommended. All collections.This Dictionary provides a wide range of coverage on a topic that has played a significant role in human society, from the early theoreticians and thinkers who proposed republican, democratic, and authoritarian innovations; to those who sought equality of classes, races, and genders; to those who insisted on hierarchy under a supreme leader, or god; and to those who had more practical economic, social, and ethical plans. This historical dictionary covers the most vital information on the persons, plans, and attempts associated with utopianism that have been seen since ancient times. An introductory essay, chronology, 600 dictionary entries, an extensive bibliography, and an appendix listing the names and locations of utopian communities worldwide enable the reader to explore the Western mind's desire to improve the world and the lives of the people within it as utopianism has persisted over the centuries.This Dictionary contains more than 600 dictionary entries on utopian thought and experimentation that span the centuries from ancient times to the present. The text not only covers utopian communities worldwide, but also its ideas from the well known such as those expounded in Thomas More's Utopia, and the ideas of philÃâ