Historical study of owenite socialism and the cooperative movement in the UK from 1825 to 1845, based on a study of the experiments of three leading communities - includes bibliography pp. 241 to 260, illustrations and references.
Robert Owen (1771-1858) was the founder of British socialism, and one of the most influential reformers in Britain and America in the first half of the 19th century. This book contains all Owen's key writings on the ideal community, socialism, religion, and the capitalist economic system.
First Published in 1982. In this book, Taylor has selected for special attention the work of Saint-Simon and his disciples (the SaintSimonians), Owen, Fourier, Cabet, and Weitling - those thinkers who made the most important contributions to the development of early socialist theory. The author discusses the designation of 'utopian' which entered into the conventional vocabulary of the history of ideas, and is now used almost without question. This title argues that these thinkers were certainly utopian in the sense that they sought to describe the structure of an ideal future society.
First delivered as part of an international conference held at Brest University in November 2007—under the aegis of the Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique (CRBC)—, this collection of essays essentially aims at interrogating history in order to better understand the political and ideological complexity of early XXIst-century Ireland. This complexity reflects, in many respects, Ireland’s uniqueness among the Western European nations. Some of the multiple persuasions within the gamut of Irish political ideology, from the Enlightenment to the present, are thus explored from diverse angles of approach—dialectical, taxonomic, theoretical, practical, individual, collective—, and through a diverse range of disciplines—human sciences, political science, social sciences, literature, philosophy and art history—and themes—from Jonathan Swift’s rhetorical complexity to the evolution of Irish republicanism after 9/11, including the reassessment of Daniel O’Connell’s political ideology, Owenism in Ireland, Oscar Wilde’s socialistic ideology, the ideological development of the Republican and Loyalist prisoners… This unique collection of essays, far from being a static historiographical description, provides food for thought and sheds light on the fascinating ambivalent dynamics lying at the heart of the building process of a modern nation resulting from the aggregate of individual will, collective ideals and Zeitgeist. The impressive variety of issues raised by authors of diverse origins (United States, Ireland, Britain, France), including leading experts in the above-mentioned areas (Richard English, Robert Mahony, Jonathan Tonge, Kieran Allen, John Sloan, Christopher Murray, Vincent Geoghegan…), therefore, widely contributes to the fact that the present book will be intellectually stimulating and enlightening, at least as an introduction, for all the students and scholars of Irish studies and other related disciplines.
This volume offers new perspectives on the appeal and profound cultural meaning of socialism over the past two centuries. It brings together scholarship from various disciplines addressing diverse national contexts, including Britain, China, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the USA. Taken together, the contributions highlight the aesthetic, narrative, and religious dimensions of socialism as it has developed through three broad phases in the modern era: early nineteenth-century beginnings, mass-based political organizations, and the attainment of state power in the twentieth century and beyond. Socialism did not attract millions of people primarily because of logical argument and empirical evidence, important though those were. Rather, it told the most compelling story about the past, present, and future. Refocusing attention on socialism's imaginative dimensions, this volume aims to revive scholarly interest in one of the modern world1s most important political orientations.
Based on original sources, this study charts the development of modern Irish socialism from the influence of William Thompson, Marx and the First International, challenging the myth that socialism emerged with James Connolly and the struggle for independence. The author explores the land war, the challenging position of Irish socialists in relation to Irish independence and the impact of British socialism on Ireland.
These pioneering essays provide a unique study of the development of political ideas in Ireland from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The book breaks away from the traditional emphasis in Irish historiography on the nationalism/unionism debate to focus instead on previously neglected areas such as the role of the Scottish Enlightenment and early Irish socialism and conservatism. A wide range of original primary sources are used from pamphlets to journalism, devotional tracts to poetry.
A radical thinker and humanitarian employer, Owen made a major contribution to nineteenth-century social movements including co-operatives, trade unions and workers' education. He was a pioneer of enlightened approaches to the education of children and an advocate of birth control.
The Utopia Reader compiles primary texts from a variety of authors and movements in the history of theorizing utopias. Utopianism is defined as the various ways of imagining, creating, or analyzing the ways and means of creating an ideal or alternative society. Prominent writers and scholars across history have long explored how or why to envision different ways of life. The volume includes texts from classical Greek literature, the Old Testament, and Plato’s Republic, to Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and beyond. By balancing well-known and obscure examples, the text provides a comprehensive and definitive collection of the various ways Utopias have been conceived throughout history and how Utopian ideals have served as criticisms of existing sociocultural conditions. This new edition includes many historically well-known works, little known but influential texts, and contemporary writings, providing an even more expansive coverage of the varieties of approaches and responses to the concept of utopia in the past, present, and even the future. In particular, the volume now includes feminist writings and work by authors of color, and contends with current concerns, such as the exploration of the ecological ideals of Utopia. Furthermore, Claeys and Sargent highlight twenty-first century trends and popular narrative explorations of Utopias through the genres of young adult dystopias, survivalist dystopias, and non-print utopias. Covering a range of original theories of utopianism and revealing the nuances and concerns of writers across history as they attempt to envision different, ideal societies, The Utopia Reader is an essential resource for anyone who envisions a better future.
Socialism names a form of collective life that has never been fully realized; consequently, it is best understood as a goal to be imagined. So this study argues, and thereby uncovers an aesthetic impulse that animates some of the most consequential socialist writing, thought, and practice of the long nineteenth century. Imagining Socialism explores this tradition of radical activism, investigating the diverse ways that British socialists--from Robert Owen to the mid-century Christian Socialists to William Morris--marshalled the resources of the aesthetic in their efforts to surmount politics and develop non-governmental forms of collective life. Their ambitious attempts at social regeneration led some socialists to explore the liberatory possibilities afforded by cooperative labor, women's emancipation, political violence, and the power of the arts themselves. Imagining Socialism demonstrates that, far from being confined to the socialist revival of the fin de siècle, important socialist experiments with the emancipatory potential of the aesthetic in Britain may be found throughout the period it calls the socialist century--and may still inspire us today.