Scholarly interpretations of the collapse of communism and developments thereafter have tended to be primarily concerned with people's need to rid themselves of the communist system, of their past. The expectations, dreams, and hopes that ordinary Eastern Europeans had when they took to the streets in 1989, and have had ever since, have therefore been overlooked - and our understanding of the changes in post-communist Europe has remained incomplete. Focusing primarily on five key areas, such as the heritage of 1989 revolutions, ambivalence, disillusionment, individualism, and collective identities, this book explores the expectations and goals that ordinary Eastern Europeans had during the 1989 revolutions and the decade thereafter, and also the problems and disappointments they encountered in the course of the transformation. The analysis is based on extensive interviews with university students and young intellectuals in the Czech Republic, Eastern Germany and Estonia in the 1990s, which in themselves have considerable value as historical documents.

Canonical but controversial works of radical modernism, John Dos Passos' novels continue to intrigue readers and challenge literary critics with their unique styles and provocative messages. This book offers an insightful and refreshing perspective on his fictional world, exploring the historical vision and utopian aspirations of his early novels in light of their dialectical politics in narrating modern American society. History and Utopian Disillusion convincingly shows that Dos Passos' epic-scale project is a radical hymn of faith dialectically inspiring the utopian resolution of American history by presenting entropic despair and disillusionment.

Mirrors of Destruction examines the relationship between total war, state-organized genocide, and the emergence of modern identity. Here, Omer Bartov demonstrates that in the twentieth century there have been intimate links between military conflict, mass murder of civilian populations, and the definition and categorization of groups and individuals. These connections were most clearly manifested in the Holocaust, as the Nazis attempted to exterminate European Jewry under cover of a brutal war and with the stated goal of creating a racially pure Aryan population and Germanic empire. The Holocaust, however, can only be understood within the context of the century's predilection for applying massive and systematic methods of destruction to resolve conflicts over identity. To provide the context for the "Final Solution," Bartov examines the changing relationships between Jews and non-Jews in France and Germany from the outbreak of World War I to the present. Rather than presenting a comprehensive history, or a narrative from a single perspective, Bartov views the past century through four interrelated prisms. He begins with an analysis of the glorification of war and violence, from its modern birth in the trenches of World War I to its horrifying culmination in the presentation of genocide by the SS as a glorious undertaking. He then examines the pacifist reaction in interwar France to show how it contributed to a climate of collaboration with dictatorship and mass murder. The book goes on to argue that much of the discourse on identity throughout the century has had to do with identifying and eliminating society's "elusive enemies" or "enemies from within." Bartov concludes with an investigation of modern apocalyptic visions, showing how they have both encouraged mass destructions and opened a way for the reconstruction of individual and collective identifies after a catastrophe. Written with verve, Mirrors of Destruction is rich in interpretations and theoretical tools and provides a new framework for understanding a central trait of modern history.

Utopia and Utopianism in the Contemporary Chinese Context: Texts, Ideas, Spaces decisively demonstrates the extent to which utopianism has shaped political thought, cultural imaginaries, and social engagement after it was introduced into the Chinese context in the nineteenth century. In fact, pursuit of utopia has often led to action—such as the Chinese Revolution and the Umbrella Movement—and contested consequences. Covering a time span that goes from the late Qing to our days, the authors show that few ideas have been as influencing as utopia, which has compellingly shaped the imaginaries that underpin China’s historical change. Utopianism contributed to the formation of the Chinese state itself—shaping the thought of key figures of the late Qing and early Republican eras such as Kang Youwei and Sun Yat-sen—and outlived the labyrinthine debates of the second half of the twentieth century, both under Mao’s rule and during the post-socialist era. Even in the current times of dystopian narratives, a period in which utopia seems to be less influential than in the past, its manifestations persistently provide lifelines against fatalism or cynicism. This collection shows how profoundly utopian ideas have nurtured both the thought of crucial figures during these historical times, the new generation of mainland Chinese and Sinophone intellectuals, and the hopes of twenty-first-century Hong Kong activists. “Wang, Leung, and Zhang’s collection is a timely contribution to utopian studies built on consistent, coherent, boundary-crossing approaches. Interdisciplinary in its very sense, the essays bring intellectual history, literary studies, philosophy, and political theories together in dialogue. Of particular note are the essays that situate Hong Kong in a literary tradition that connects China, Hong Kong, and the beyond.” —Mingwei Song, Wellesley College “Utopia and Utopianism in the Contemporary Chinese Context is an impressive intellectual undertaking. The essays are highly engaging and offer powerful, multi-faceted approaches to utopianism in contemporary Chinese thought and practice. Stimulating and informative, the book as a whole addresses the dynamic interplay between the utopian and dystopian, thereby inspiring clarity in political thought and action in the present moment.” —Robin Visser, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Between Utopia and Dystopia offers a new interpretation of Erasmian humanism. It argues that Erasmian humanism created the identity of the universal and critical intellectual, but that this identity undermined the fundamental premises of humanist discourse. It closely reads several works of Erasmus and Thomas More, employing an interdisciplinary approach to the study of intellectual history, and adopting theoretical insights and methodological procedures from various disciplines.

An exploration of the concept of utopia in Latin America from the earliest accounts of the New World to current cultural production, the carefully selected essays in this volume represent the latest research on the topic by some of the most important Latin Americanists working in North American academia today.

Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia has been a profoundly provocative book. The debate about politics and social knowledge that was spawned by its original publication in 1929 attracted the most promising younger scholars, some of whom shaped the thought of several generations. The book became a focus for a debate on the methodological and epistemological problems confronting German social science. More than thirty major papers were published in response to Mannheim’s text. Writers such as Hannah Arendt, Ernst Robert Curtius, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Helmuth Plessner, Hans Speier and Paul Tillich were among the contributors. Their positions varied from seeing in the sociology of knowledge a sophisticated reformulation of the materialist conception of history to linking its popularity to a betrayal of Marxism. The English publication in 1936 defined formative issues for two generations of sociological self-reflection. Knowledge and Politics provides an introduction to the dispute and reproduces the leading contributions. It sheds new light on one of the greatest controversies that have marked German social science in the past hundred years.

Teaching writing, critical thinking, and argument, this popular reader features more than 100 thought-provoking selections written by some of history's classic thinkers.

Karl Mannheim's thought cuts across much of twentieth-century sociology, politics, history, philosophy, and psychology. This enlarged anthology convincingly demonstrates his centrality to present-day interpetive social and political theory. The posthumous publication of Structures of Thinking and the full text of Conservatism have made From Karl Mannheim more relevant than ever. This volume demonstrates Mannheim's self-awareness and self-critical rhetoric, his sensitivity to cultural contexts, his experimental approach to systems of ideology, his recognition of multiple modes of knowing, and other features of his unfinished theorizing.There is a strong affinity between Mannheim and contemporary interest in problems of cultural interpretation. New sensitivity to the issue of relativism in both social and cultural studies also depends heavily on Mannheim. The recent demise of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia has focused attention once more on relations between intellectuals in politics, and Mannheim is arguably the most influential thinker who placed this relationship at the center of informed discussion. The range and variety of the articles in this volume reveal him, once again, as a formidable experimental and innovative thinker.This expanded edition includes Mannheim's brilliant essay "The Problem of Generations." In a new substantial introduction, Volker Meja and David Kettler analyze previously unpublished writings by Mannheim. From Karl Mannheim is essential reading for social and political theorists, as well as for psychologists. As Emory S. Bogardus noted: "Mannheim's life-work is seen as an important, far-reaching and thoughtful complement to the work of sociologists who concentrate then- research in terms of behavioral science."

Taking aim at the belief in utopia's demise, this collection of original essays offers a new look at the vibrant renewal of utopianism emerging in response to the challenges of globalization. It consider questions of hope and transformation associated with the utopian desire for social change.