Title American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and Political History

Published Hoboken : Taylor & Francis, 2011

Click on the following:
ProQuest Ebook Central

Copies

Description 1 online resource (270 pages) Contents Book Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; Figures; Introduction: Life Is More Important Than Art or Social Engineering, Eutopia, and Evolution; 1 How I Stopped Worrying and Loved Behavioural Engineering or Communal Life, Adaptations, and B.F. Skinner's Walden Two; 2 You're Not in Canada until You Can Hear the Loons Crying or Voting, People's Power, and Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest; 3 You'll Never Make a Monkey Out of Me or Altruism, Proverbial Wisdom, and Bernard Malamud's God's Grace 4 We Better Kill the Instinct to Kill Before It Kills Us or Violence, Mind Control, and Walker Percy's The Thanatos Syndrome5 It Can't Happen Here or Politics, Emotions, and Philip Roth's The Plot Against America; Notes; Bibliography; Index Summary The United States today is afflicted with political alienation, militarized violence, institutionalized poverty, and social agony. Worst of all, perhaps, it is afflicted with chronic and acute ahistoricism. America insist on ignoring the context of its present dilemmas. It insists on forgetting what preceded the headlines of today and on denying continuity with history. It insists, in short, on its exceptionalism. American Utopia and Social Engineering sets out to correct this amnesia. It misses no opportunity to flesh out both the historical premises and the political promises behind the socia Notes Print version record Subject American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism Political fiction, American -- History and criticism Utopias in literature. Social control in literature. National characteristics, American, in literature. Exceptionalism -- United States Social engineering -- United States -- History -- 20th century Political culture -- United States -- History -- 20th century Literature and society -- United States -- History -- 20th century Politics and literature -- United States -- History -- 20th century utopian literature. American fiction Exceptionalism Literature and society National characteristics, American, in literature Political culture Political fiction, American Politics and literature Social control in literature Social engineering Utopias in literature United States Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780203816615 0203816617

  Permalink