Dreams of Peace and Freedom; Utopian Moments in the Twentieth Century

by Jay Winter

• ISBN13: 9780300106657
• ISBN10: 0300106653
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2006-10-02
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

In the wake of the monstrous projects of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and others in the twentieth century, the idea of utopia has been discredited. Yet, historian Jay Winter suggests, alongside the "major utopians" who murdered millions in their attempts to transform the world were disparate groups of people trying in their own separate ways to imagine a radically better world. This original book focuses on some of the twentieth-century's "minor utopias" whose stories, overshadowed by the horrors of the Holocaust and the Gulag, suggest that the future need not be as catastrophic as the past. The book is organized around six key moments when utopian ideas and projects flourished in Europe: 1900 (the Paris World's Fair), 1919 (the Paris Peace Conference), 1937 (the Paris exhibition celebrating science and light), 1948 (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), 1968 (moral indictments and student revolt), and 1992 (the emergence of visions of global citizenship). Winter considers the dreamers and the nature of their dreams as well as their connections to one another and to the history of utopian thought. By restoring minor utopias to their rightful place in the recent past, Winter fills an important gap in the history of social thought and action in the twentieth century.

Author Biography

Jay Winter is Charles J. Stille Professor of History, Yale University. He is author or coauthor of more than a dozen books including Remembering War: The Great War between Memory and History in the 20th Century, published by Yale University Press. He lives in Guilford, CT.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction: Minor Utopias and the Visionary Temperament	1	(10)
1900: The Face of Humanity and Visions of Peace	11	(37)
1919: Perpetual War/Perpetual Peace	48	(27)
1937: Illuminations	75	(24)
1948: Human Rights	99	(22)
1968: Liberation	121	(48)
1992: Global Citizenship	169	(35)
Epilogue: An Alternative History of the Twentieth Century	204	(7)
Notes	211	(22)
Bibliography	233	(18)
Index	251