Utopian Communities in America 1680-1880 (Formerly titled "Heavens On Earth") [Paperback]

Mark Holloway (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0486215938 | ISBN-13: 978-0486215938 | Publication Date: November 17, 2011 | Edition: 2 Revised

Fascinating accounts of the history of the most important and typical American utopian communities include surveys of Shaker, New Harmony, and Brook Farm; Fourieristic phalanxes; and Oneida settlements. Details of human interest and daily life, often quoted directly from the writings of residents and visitors, describe community constitutions, revelations, and beliefs.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications; 2 Revised edition (November 17, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486215938
• ISBN-13: 978-0486215938
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #422,860 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF THE BEST SURVEYS OF UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES, January 14, 2010

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Utopian Communities in America 1680-1880 (Formerly titled "Heavens On Earth") (Paperback)

In this 1951 book (revised and republished in 1966), Mark Holloway has written one of the most engaging surveys of "utopian" communities ever written, covering groups such as the Shakers, Rappites, Zoarites, New Harmony, Fourierism, Oneida, Icaria, and including chapters such as, "Utopia In Decline," and "Was it Worth While?"

Holloway's observations are both insightful and sharp; such as:

"The history of these experiments is one of few successes, many failures, and constantly renewed endavor. Only three or four communities have lasted longer than a hundred years."
"The Anabaptists were persecuted as much for their radicalism as for their religious faith."
"The Shakers believed in the bisexuality of God, manifested in the creation of male and female 'in our image,' and duplicated throughout nature in the vegetable as well as in the animal kingdom."
"What we would call 'amusement' was unknown to the Shakers in their heyday."
"Mormon polygamy was part of the general attack that was everywhere being made on the institution of monogamy."
In John Humphrey Noyes, "All the unconscious secual desires of the past ten or twenty years had at last found a spokesman whom nothing could daunt, a tactician who drove straight through the enemy's lines of defense armed with only an ingeneous shield of his own devising."
"Every observer agrees that life in the successful community was far superior to industrial or agricultural life in 'the world.'"

For anyone interested in utopian communities, intentional communities, communes, ecovillages, and similar movements, this book is absolute MUST READING!

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding review of communal experiments in America, May 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Utopian Communities in America 1680-1880 (Formerly titled "Heavens On Earth") (Paperback)

Much of America's history is dropped into what some refer to as a memory black hole. For a variety of reasons, many parts of American experimentation with lifestyle, living, and economics have been dropped into this hole, rather than celebrated. It would be interesting, if we could, to post facto test the survivability of such experiments in post-Waco America...

A good, easy, bath-room compatible and memorable read.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unusual and thought provoking from a development view, August 19, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Utopian Communities in America 1680-1880 (Formerly titled "Heavens On Earth") (Paperback)

I found this book quite remarkable and well written as well as researched. Few people know the origin of such companies as Onieda Silver or the Amana corp as stemming from religious communal societies of long ago.

What this book has to offer those interested in bottom up economic development is hundreds of years of results of experiments both successful and unsuccessful.