Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia

Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia PDF Author: Nathaniel Robert Walker
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198861443
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 577

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Book Description
A study of British and American Utopian writing of the 1800s in the context of developments in real architectural, political, and cultural life. The book studies utopian visions published in the UK and the USA in the 1800s by writers such Robert Owen, James Silk Buckingham, Edward Bellamy, and William Morris.

Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia

Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia PDF Author: Nathaniel Robert Walker
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198861443
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 577

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Book Description
A study of British and American Utopian writing of the 1800s in the context of developments in real architectural, political, and cultural life. The book studies utopian visions published in the UK and the USA in the 1800s by writers such Robert Owen, James Silk Buckingham, Edward Bellamy, and William Morris.

Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia

Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia PDF Author: Nathaniel Robert Walker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192605879
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 577

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Book Description
The rise of suburbs and disinvestment from cities have been defining features of life in many countries over the course of the twentieth century. In Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia, Nathaniel Walker asks: why did we abandon our dense, complex urban places and seek to find "the best of the city and the country" in the flowery suburbs? While looking back at the architecture and urban design of the 1800s offers some answers, Walker argues that a great missing piece of the story can be found in Victorian utopian literature. The replacement of cities with high-tech suburbs was repeatedly imagined and breathlessly described in the socialist dreams and science-fiction fantasies of dozens of British and American authors. Some of these visionaries — such as Robert Owen, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Bellamy, William Morris, Ebenezer Howard, and H. G. Wells — are enduringly famous, while others were street vendors or amateur chemists who have been all but forgotten. Together, they fashioned strange and beautiful imaginary worlds built of synthetic gemstones, lacy metal colonnades, and unbreakable glass, staffed by robotic servants and teeming with flying carriages. As varied as their futuristic visions could be, Walker reveals how most of them were unified by a single, desperate plea: for humanity to have a future worth living, we must abandon our smoky, poor, chaotic Babylonian cities for a life in shimmering gardens.

The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures

The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures PDF Author: Peter Marks
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030886549
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 721

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Book Description
The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures celebrates a literary genre already over 500 years old. Specially commissioned essays from established and emerging international scholars reflect the vibrancy of utopian vision, and its resiliency as idea, genre, and critical mode. Covering politics, environment, geography, body and mind, and social organization, the volume surveys current research and maps new areas of study. The chapters include investigations of anarchism, biopolitics, and postcolonialism and study film, art, and literature. Each essay considers central questions and key primary works, evaluates the most recent research, and outlines contemporary debates. Literatures of Africa, Australia, China, Latin America, and the Middle East are discussed in this global, cross-disciplinary, and comprehensive volume.

The Victorian Vision

The Victorian Vision PDF Author: Margaret M. Maison
Publisher: New York, Sheed and Ward
ISBN:
Category : English fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description


Utopian Novels in Victorian England

Utopian Novels in Victorian England PDF Author: Silke Bosch
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3640490835
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 16

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Potsdam (Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: Victorian Novels, language: English, abstract: The aim of this paper is to compare three of the most influential Utopian novels of the Victorian era in Great Britain: William Morris ́ News from Nowhere, Samuel Butler ́s Erewhon and Edward Bulwer-Lytton ́s The Coming Race. ... I will concentrate on a specific aspect which struck me as most interesting. The question I want to pose is in how far the works are still hopeful and positive and how far they are already disillusioned and negative. Do they consider the idea of a utopian and perfect society to be desirable and possible? I found that Morris’ News from Nowhere is still a classic Utopia as it depicts a hopeful prospect of an ideal state of society, but it also introduces a new notion. A utopian society is not something out of human reach, but can be realised entirely. Morris’ basis was Marx’ theory and he really believed in the possibility of a truly communist and happy nation. Butler’s work Erewhon should be rather called a satire, as it is mostly a criticism of Victorian society. But still, it uses the frame of a Utopian fiction and therefor also comments on it. From Erewhon can be concluded that mankind is not capable of true improvement and that a perfect system is intolerant and oppressive. Lytton’s work The Coming Race is a mixture of criticism, offering answers and for the most part a discussion of the perfectibility of men and the desirability of perfection, coming to the conclusion that perfection and the desire for it is rather a threat to mankind.

Bourgeois Utopias

Bourgeois Utopias PDF Author: Robert Fishman
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786722843
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
A noted urban historian traces the story of the suburb from its origins in nineteenth-century London to its twentieth-century demise in decentralized cities like Los Angeles.

Parallel Utopias

Parallel Utopias PDF Author: Richard Sexton
Publisher: Chronicle Books (CA)
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
As the twentieth century draws to a close, the desire for communities that offer an improved quality of life - where the pedestrian is as viable as the motorist; where the architecture is varied, human-scaled, and responsive to its environment; where residents can find privacy yet enjoy the company of their neighbors - has taken on a particularly significant urgency. As Richard Sexton convincingly documents in Parallel Utopias, two special places - The Sea Ranch in Northern California and Seaside in the Florida panhandle - have arrived at two unique solutions in the search for the ideal community. A lively introductory essay outlines the nature of this archetypal quest, followed by an engaging discussion of the philosophy, architecture, history, and character of both communities. Sexton's sumptuous full-color photographs tour each community in detail, from their built environment and the surrounding dramatic coastal landscape to the furnishings residents have chosen for their homes. In their contributing essays, urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg analyzes with piercing clarity the evolution and contradictions of our contemporary communities, and architect William Turnbull, Jr., lucidly examines the role of the architect in shaping viable living spaces.

Visions and Revisions: A Book of Literary Devotions

Visions and Revisions: A Book of Literary Devotions PDF Author: John Cowper Powys
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Visions and Revisions: A Book of Literary Devotions" by John Cowper Powys. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Practicing Utopia

Practicing Utopia PDF Author: Rosemary Wakeman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022634603X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
The typical town springs up around a natural resource such as a river, an ocean, an exceptionally deep harbour or in proximity to a larger, already thriving town. Not so with 'new towns, ' which are created by decree rather than out of necessity and are often intended to break from the tendencies of past development. New towns aren't a new thing but these utopian developments saw a resurgence in the 20th century. Rosemary Wakeman gives us a sweeping view of the new town movement as a global phenomenon, from Tapiola in Finland to Islamabad in Pakistan, Cergy-Pontoise in France to Irvine in California.

The Story of Utopias

The Story of Utopias PDF Author: Lewis Mumford
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465579036
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description