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In Search of a Perfect World: Architectural, Political, Social, and Literary Visions of Utopia; A Quiz Deck
Product Description
From the People’s Church to Plato’s republic, utopian communities too often fail as extremism edges out moderation. What child of Woodstock could tolerate the Platonic state, with its embargo on music? And as to Thomas More’s creation, it’s all about perspective: the slaves who drove Utopia’s economy might have preferred a different arrangement.
Yet time and again women and men have left the hurly-burly of the city for an agrarian idyll in the belief that a perfect world—or a nearly perfect acre—might be possible. This quiz deck of 48 cards, with questions on one side and answers on the other, offers a realistic survey of utopias around the world and throughout history.
Yet time and again women and men have left the hurly-burly of the city for an agrarian idyll in the belief that a perfect world—or a nearly perfect acre—might be possible. This quiz deck of 48 cards, with questions on one side and answers on the other, offers a realistic survey of utopias around the world and throughout history.
Sample Card Text
America’s most intellectual utopian community, the transcendentalist-inspired Brook Farm near Boston, included Nathaniel Hawthorne, journalist Charles Dana, leaders of the Unitarian movement, philosophers, scholars, and abolitionists. True or false: Observers agreed the community’s leading mind belonged to Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Answer False. Although a friend, Emerson never lived at Brook Farm. The true genius there was Margaret Fuller (American, 1810–1850), author, leader of a Boston salon, co-editor with Emerson of The Dial, and in later years a revolutionary in Italy. One observer called her “perhaps the brightest mind at Brook Farm.”
Founded in 1841 by George Ripley (American, 1802–1880), a former Unitarian minister, Brook Farm set out to live by industry “compatible with the highest moral and intellectual culture.” People would live and work together. All would do manual work; Dana found himself cleaning cow dung.
Brook Farm wasn’t ascetic. A member bragged of earning “an honorable livelihood and without being obliged to forego any of the real advantages, pleasures and refinements of society and social intercourse.” Brook Farm was a cooperative, not a commune, with investors earning interest. People were paid equally for work. Brook Farm’s “industry” proved to be an excellent school.
Answer False. Although a friend, Emerson never lived at Brook Farm. The true genius there was Margaret Fuller (American, 1810–1850), author, leader of a Boston salon, co-editor with Emerson of The Dial, and in later years a revolutionary in Italy. One observer called her “perhaps the brightest mind at Brook Farm.”
Founded in 1841 by George Ripley (American, 1802–1880), a former Unitarian minister, Brook Farm set out to live by industry “compatible with the highest moral and intellectual culture.” People would live and work together. All would do manual work; Dana found himself cleaning cow dung.
Brook Farm wasn’t ascetic. A member bragged of earning “an honorable livelihood and without being obliged to forego any of the real advantages, pleasures and refinements of society and social intercourse.” Brook Farm was a cooperative, not a commune, with investors earning interest. People were paid equally for work. Brook Farm’s “industry” proved to be an excellent school.
