A Free Country: Australians’ Search for Utopia covers the years 1861–1901 and is the second of the five-volume series about what the publishers call “Australian liberalism.” The author is a well-known and respected Australian academic and was for some years a senior federal cabinet minister with portfolios in education, environment, and employment.This weighty tome provides superb coverage of the Australian continent’s political transformation from six more or less independent and competing British colonies into the independent nation of Australia in 1901. (...) It does this by focusing on the political and cultural tensions... (shrink)

This book's quirky title and strikingly beautiful cover will grab attention on any bookshelf. The image comes from an old watercolor tourism advertising poster, dreamily evocative of paradisiacal pristine lakes and towering mountains. The title comes from a supposed quote by an early nineteenth-century female convict who declared that what would make her life perfect would be "Duck and Green Peas! For Ever!".1There is much to enjoy about this book. It is written in a nonacademic, at times humorous, manner; is (...) well illustrated; and follows a logical format.The book opens with early explorers' fantasies of the lives of indigenous Tasmanians. While some regarded them as debased, not-quite-human, others thought... (shrink)

Melbourne and Mars was first published in Australia in 1889. The author, Joseph Fraser, was born in England and came to Melbourne, via New Zealand, in 1885. "Marvellous Melbourne," as it was then known, was one of the world's richest and fastest-growing cities, its wealth coming from rich gold deposits. As well as having Australia's wealthiest citizens, however, it also had Australia's worst slumsThis 2020 reprint is introduced and edited by Alexandra Roginsky and Zachary Kendall, of Deakin University. Except for (...) correcting a few spelling errors, they retain the original text.Joseph Fraser was a phrenologist as well as an avid orator and writer.1 He never prospered and, when writing this book, was dying from... (shrink)

Scholarly books of edited readings depend on the ability of the editor, the range of topics and authors, and the breadth versus depth with which the subject is approached. Too much breadth results in a platitudinous mishmash, while too much depth usually lacks context. In this work, the editor, Tim Miller of the University of Kansas, strikes a reasonable compromise. Not all chapters will be of equal interest to any reader, but all are germane to the topic.This book has thirteen (...) chapters, seven written by North Americans, three by U.K. residents, two by Europeans, and one by an Israeli. Eight of these authors are current or ex-members of “spiritual and visionary” communities, three are academics, and two are... (shrink)

Writing the history of anything is a challenge, but endeavoring to write the history of an idea, particularly one as enduring, chimeric, emotive, and misunderstood as “utopia,” is truly a task only to be undertaken by either an intellectual giant or an utter fool. Fortunately for readers, Professor Gregory Claeys, from the University of London, is the former. This relatively large-format book is richly illustrated and printed on glossy “art” paper, ensuring that the rich colors are not lost. The strikingly (...) beautiful cover includes an evocative painting from an 1850 version of Gulliver’s Travels. The liberal inclusion of bright images, and captioned boxes elaborating on a theme or person, is very .. (shrink)

Scholarly books of edited readings are usually, like the curate's egg, "excellent in parts," and that backhanded compliment applies here. This truly international book, edited by an American and a Canadian, has eighteen chapters, with eleven of the authors from the United States, three from Canada, two from Spain and the United Kingdom, and one from Australia, Argentina, France, and Italy—a mixture of academics, doctoral students, and public intellectuals. The chapters are divided into three sections: "Contextualising the Individual and Utopia"; (...) "Mind, Body, Soul, and the Utopian Individual"; and "Marginalised and Alternative Interpretations of the Individual and Utopia."The chapter titles range from the clear and... (shrink)

Utopia for Realists emerged from a Netherlands-based, Web discussion site called The Correspondent. This group, launched in 2013, styles itself as a "member-funded journalism platform for independent voices." This book reflects both the advantages and disadvantages of its origins. The advantages are that such groups can quickly publish popular items online and perhaps attract enough readers to convince publishers to present the material as books. The disadvantage for scholars is that such online publications usually have not been peer-reviewed or carefully (...) edited.Bregman starts off with the thesis, more effectively made by Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature, that most people in the world are better... (shrink)

ABSTRACT While most attempts at creating utopian societies have ended in failure, few were as fraudulent as La Nouvelle-France on the island of New Ireland. Its founder, the Marquis de Rays, was a charismatic monomaniac who dreamed of creating a South Pacific utopia. He launched this scheme in 1877 and soon investors poured in money, and would-be utopian settlers joined up. During 1880–81, several hundred people sailed on inadequate ships to where they expected to find utopia, but instead found a (...) swampy, malarial-infested wasteland, surrounded by cannibalistic neighbours. Some were killed while others died of disease and starvation before the survivors made their ways to Australia, New Zealand, other Pacific islands, or back to Europe. At a sensational trial in Paris, The Marquis de Rays and several associates were fined and sentenced to prison. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay is motivated by the seeming contradiction that Korean unification is sought after by most Koreans yet speculations about the social and cultural changes it might bring are almost absent. This may be because Korean unification denotes a series of differences contrasted to the present—because it is a potent “master symbol” with one foot in utopian speculation and the other in policy studies. In this essay, I outline some of the complexities, starting with an examination of illustrations of (...) unification in textbooks for the tensions and contradictions they introduce. I then turn to fiction and film, sketching not only what some South Koreans hope will happen after unification with the North but, indeed, the limits of their imagination regarding what the future will hold for South Korea. In the end, I concur with Grinker that representations of unification are “utopian,” but I object to the association of “utopia” with a socially engineered straitjacket. On the contrary, the utopias projected here suggest stepping off a precipice into worlds unknown, futures defined by their radical difference from today. The end of the essay locates these more imaginative dimensions of Korean unification in the “hope” of Ernst Bloch. (shrink)