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This first volume will showcase the richness and diversity of the Owenite movement, which spanned decades (from Owen’s first published books in 1813-16 to the late 1840s), political allegiances, genders and continents. This volume therefore calls for a variety of sources not easily available elsewhere - including books, pamphlets, correspondence and newspaper articles - and a variety of often overlapping voices - from Chartists to early co-operators, secularists, non-British Owenites and proponents of women’s rights. The sheer range of Owenite ventures (intentional communities, co-operatives, labour exchanges and experiments in popular education) will be covered, thus blending social and political history. The attempt to map the Owenite movement will eventually lead to the identification of its shared, core principles and values: internationalism, co-operation, concepts of political change, and above all, the ideal of community.
This book provides an account of how, in the years 1800-1825, enlightened entrepreneur and budding reformer Robert Owen used his cotton mill village of New Lanark, Scotland, as a test-bed for a set of political intuitions which would later form the bedrock of early socialism in Britain. Drawing from previously unpublished archival sources, this study shows that New Lanark was not merely on the receiving end of Owen’s innovative brand of industrial paternalism, but also acted as a major source of inspiration for many aspects of his social system, including his desire to remodel society along communitarian lines. This book therefore reaffirms the centrality of New Lanark as the cradle of socialism in Britain, and provides a contextualised, social history of Owen’s ideas, tracing direct continuities between his early years as a paternalistic businessman, and his later career as a radical political leader. In doing so, it eschews the myth of New Lanark as a unidimensional ‘model’ village and addresses the ambiguities of Owen’s journey from paternalism to socialism.
This collection of innovative essays celebrates the New Town of Edinburgh over the 250 years since its original creation. The contributing authors discuss the intellectual, economic and political contexts which provided the impetus for the city of Edinburgh to expand north of the Old Town, and analyse the New Town's unique architectural status in terms of its size, monumentality and degree of preservation. For centuries, Scotland has pursued innovation, improvement, commerce and contact with England and the Continent; and since medieval times it has been an urbanising land of planned towns. This book reflects on the constantly changing dialogue between Edinburgh's Old and New Towns, from the...
This book challenges existing accounts of the role of religion in early-nineteenth-century British socialism. Against scholarly interpretations which have identified Owenite socialists as anti-religious or as imitating Christianity, this book argues that Owenites offer a re-conception of the nature of ‘religion’ as advanced through knowledge of the natural and social world, as a prospective source of solidarity which could serve as the unifying bond for communities, and as constituted by ethical conduct. It shows how this re-conception was formed through a sincere and considered reflection upon the problem of religious truth and was shaped by the particular religious context of early-nineteenth-century Britain. It then demonstrates the importance of this reimagination of religion to their understanding of socialism. Their religious interests were not an eccentric adornment to their socialism, an outdated residue yet to be shed and encumbering the development of a mature socialism, or merely instrumental to their temporal goals. Instead, Owenite ambitions of religious reform were grounded in the philosophical preoccupations which animated their socialism.
As utopias question social ills and express human wants and unfulfilled dreams, they offer insights into the problems, desires and ideals of a certain time. This book uses this lens to examine cultural representations of ageing and old age in utopian writings from the Renaissance till today. The individual chapters offer detailed analyses and interpretations of numerous utopias from Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) to contemporary science fiction. Through close readings, the book explores age-related fears and ideals and investigates how perceptions of ageing and the life course as well as attitudes towards older people have developed over the centuries. Covering a large time span and a broad range of different utopias, the book identifies long-term developments and also puts certain dreams such as that of ever-lasting youth into a wider perspective. It thus enriches both our understanding of the cultural history of ageing and the history of utopian thought. The book will appeal to scholars and students from the fields of cultural gerontology and utopian studies, as well as literary studies and cultural history more generally.
Deeply Responsible Business profiles corporate leaders of the past two centuries who made social missions vital to their businesses. Geoffrey Jones explores the characters and motivations of fourteen such leaders and compares their deep social and environmental commitments to the lukewarm “corporate social responsibility” of today.
Bernie Sanders’ socialist advocacy in the United States, communist China’s economic successes and a Marxist revival are inspiring many to muse about improved strategies for building superior socialist futures. Socialist Economic Systems provides an objective record of socialism’s promises and performance during 1820–2022, identifies a feasible path forward and provides a rigorous analytic framework for the comparison of economic systems. The book opens by surveying pre-industrial utopias from Plato to Thomas More, and libertarian communal designs for superior living. It plumbs all aspects of the revolutionary and democratic socialist political movements that emerged after 1870 and co...
This first volume will showcase the richness and diversity of the Owenite movement, sourcing material from books, pamphlets, correspondence and newspaper articles written by a variety of different voices, from Chartists to early co-operators, secularists, non-British Owenites and proponents of women's rights.
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.