Author: Robert P. Sutton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780875804019
Category : Collective settlements
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This is a regional study of 19th century utopian movements, focusing on the Old Northwest Territory, the Dakotas, and Missouri, a region surpassed only by New England in the number of utopian settlements. It ranges from the first Shaker village near Dayton, Ohio, built in 1807, to the 1903 incorporation and ensuing stormy history of The House of David in Benton Harbor, Michigan. During these years, charismatic individuals built three different kinds of utopias : perfectionist, whose members thought they could achieve impeccancy almost immediately by living communally; cooperative, whose members believed that communalism would improve the moral and economic condition of its members and at the same time be the alternative to exploitative capitalism; and social and communist, whose members believed that democracy and equality could never be achieved without living in an ?association,? as with the socialists, or in a ?community of good,? as with the Icarians.
Heartland Utopias
Author: Robert P. Sutton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780875804019
Category : Collective settlements
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This is a regional study of 19th century utopian movements, focusing on the Old Northwest Territory, the Dakotas, and Missouri, a region surpassed only by New England in the number of utopian settlements. It ranges from the first Shaker village near Dayton, Ohio, built in 1807, to the 1903 incorporation and ensuing stormy history of The House of David in Benton Harbor, Michigan. During these years, charismatic individuals built three different kinds of utopias : perfectionist, whose members thought they could achieve impeccancy almost immediately by living communally; cooperative, whose members believed that communalism would improve the moral and economic condition of its members and at the same time be the alternative to exploitative capitalism; and social and communist, whose members believed that democracy and equality could never be achieved without living in an ?association,? as with the socialists, or in a ?community of good,? as with the Icarians.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780875804019
Category : Collective settlements
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This is a regional study of 19th century utopian movements, focusing on the Old Northwest Territory, the Dakotas, and Missouri, a region surpassed only by New England in the number of utopian settlements. It ranges from the first Shaker village near Dayton, Ohio, built in 1807, to the 1903 incorporation and ensuing stormy history of The House of David in Benton Harbor, Michigan. During these years, charismatic individuals built three different kinds of utopias : perfectionist, whose members thought they could achieve impeccancy almost immediately by living communally; cooperative, whose members believed that communalism would improve the moral and economic condition of its members and at the same time be the alternative to exploitative capitalism; and social and communist, whose members believed that democracy and equality could never be achieved without living in an ?association,? as with the socialists, or in a ?community of good,? as with the Icarians.
Utopianism for a Dying Planet
Author: Gregory Claeys
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691236682
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 608
Book Description
How the utopian tradition offers answers to today’s environmental crises In the face of Earth’s environmental breakdown, it is clear that technological innovation alone won’t save our planet. A more radical approach is required, one that involves profound changes in individual and collective behavior. Utopianism for a Dying Planet examines the ways the expansive history of utopian thought, from its origins in ancient Sparta and ideas of the Golden Age through to today's thinkers, can offer moral and imaginative guidance in the face of catastrophe. The utopian tradition, which has been critical of conspicuous consumption and luxurious indulgence, might light a path to a society that emphasizes equality, sociability, and sustainability. Gregory Claeys unfolds his argument through a wide-ranging consideration of utopian literature, social theory, and intentional communities. He defends a realist definition of utopia, focusing on ideas of sociability and belonging as central to utopian narratives. He surveys the development of these themes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before examining twentieth- and twenty-first-century debates about alternatives to consumerism. Claeys contends that the current global warming limit of 1.5C (2.7F) will result in cataclysm if there is no further reduction in the cap. In response, he offers a radical Green New Deal program, which combines ideas from the theory of sociability with proposals to withdraw from fossil fuels and cease reliance on unsustainable commodities. An urgent and comprehensive search for antidotes to our planet’s destruction, Utopianism for a Dying Planet asks for a revival of utopian ideas, not as an escape from reality, but as a powerful means of changing it.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691236682
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 608
Book Description
How the utopian tradition offers answers to today’s environmental crises In the face of Earth’s environmental breakdown, it is clear that technological innovation alone won’t save our planet. A more radical approach is required, one that involves profound changes in individual and collective behavior. Utopianism for a Dying Planet examines the ways the expansive history of utopian thought, from its origins in ancient Sparta and ideas of the Golden Age through to today's thinkers, can offer moral and imaginative guidance in the face of catastrophe. The utopian tradition, which has been critical of conspicuous consumption and luxurious indulgence, might light a path to a society that emphasizes equality, sociability, and sustainability. Gregory Claeys unfolds his argument through a wide-ranging consideration of utopian literature, social theory, and intentional communities. He defends a realist definition of utopia, focusing on ideas of sociability and belonging as central to utopian narratives. He surveys the development of these themes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before examining twentieth- and twenty-first-century debates about alternatives to consumerism. Claeys contends that the current global warming limit of 1.5C (2.7F) will result in cataclysm if there is no further reduction in the cap. In response, he offers a radical Green New Deal program, which combines ideas from the theory of sociability with proposals to withdraw from fossil fuels and cease reliance on unsustainable commodities. An urgent and comprehensive search for antidotes to our planet’s destruction, Utopianism for a Dying Planet asks for a revival of utopian ideas, not as an escape from reality, but as a powerful means of changing it.
The Fluid Boundaries of Suffrage and Jim Crow
Author: DaMaris B. Hill
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739197886
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
The Fluid Boundaries of Suffrage and Jim Crow: Staking Claims in the American Heartland engages in an important conversation about race relations in the twentieth century and significantly extends the historical narrative of the Civil Rights Movement. The essays in this collection examine instances of racial and gender oppression in the American heartland—which is conceived of here as having a specific cultural significance which resists diversity—in the twentieth century, instances which have often been ignored or overshadowed in typical historical narratives. The contributors explore the intersections of suffrage, race relations, and cultural histories, and add to an ongoing dialogue about representations of race and gender within the context of regional and national narratives
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739197886
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
The Fluid Boundaries of Suffrage and Jim Crow: Staking Claims in the American Heartland engages in an important conversation about race relations in the twentieth century and significantly extends the historical narrative of the Civil Rights Movement. The essays in this collection examine instances of racial and gender oppression in the American heartland—which is conceived of here as having a specific cultural significance which resists diversity—in the twentieth century, instances which have often been ignored or overshadowed in typical historical narratives. The contributors explore the intersections of suffrage, race relations, and cultural histories, and add to an ongoing dialogue about representations of race and gender within the context of regional and national narratives
Personal Religion and Spiritual Healing
Author: Alastair Lockhart
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438472854
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
A unique historical study of the personal nature of religion, spirituality, and healing in the twentieth century based on the letters of ordinary people from around the world. The Panacea Society was a small religious community of women that was established in England in the early twentieth century. They followed the early nineteenth-century mystic Joanna Southcott, as well other emerging spiritual movements of the day, and developed a remarkable spiritual healing practice that spread around the world. Based on the thousands of letters held in the Societys healing archive, which were sent by ordinary people from around the world, Alastair Lockhart offers a detailed study of the religious ideas of religious seekers from the 1920s to the 1970s. Focusing on Great Britain, Finland, Jamaica, and the US, Lockhart provides unique insight into the personal nature of spirituality in recent times and how ancient and modern spiritual strands were harnessed to the needs of late-modern spiritual seekers. This book addresses debates about the complexity and meaning of the rise or decline of religion in the twentieth century and the processes involved in the formation of popular nontraditional spiritualities. It informs our understanding of global and transnational religions and recent forms of spiritual healing. This is a comprehensive history of the Society from its origins to World War IIand includes a chapter on the healingand is foundational for work in this field. Jane Shaw, author of Octavia, Daughter of God: The Story of a Female Messiah and Her Followers
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438472854
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
A unique historical study of the personal nature of religion, spirituality, and healing in the twentieth century based on the letters of ordinary people from around the world. The Panacea Society was a small religious community of women that was established in England in the early twentieth century. They followed the early nineteenth-century mystic Joanna Southcott, as well other emerging spiritual movements of the day, and developed a remarkable spiritual healing practice that spread around the world. Based on the thousands of letters held in the Societys healing archive, which were sent by ordinary people from around the world, Alastair Lockhart offers a detailed study of the religious ideas of religious seekers from the 1920s to the 1970s. Focusing on Great Britain, Finland, Jamaica, and the US, Lockhart provides unique insight into the personal nature of spirituality in recent times and how ancient and modern spiritual strands were harnessed to the needs of late-modern spiritual seekers. This book addresses debates about the complexity and meaning of the rise or decline of religion in the twentieth century and the processes involved in the formation of popular nontraditional spiritualities. It informs our understanding of global and transnational religions and recent forms of spiritual healing. This is a comprehensive history of the Society from its origins to World War IIand includes a chapter on the healingand is foundational for work in this field. Jane Shaw, author of Octavia, Daughter of God: The Story of a Female Messiah and Her Followers
A Place for Utopia
Author: Smriti Srinivas
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 221
Book Description
Exploring several utopian imaginaries and practices, A Place for Utopia ties different times together from the early twentieth century to the present, the biographical and the anthropological, the cultural and the conjunctional, South Asia, Europe, and North America. It charts the valency of "utopia" for understanding designs for alternative, occluded, vernacular, or emergent urbanisms in the last hundred years. Central to the designs for utopia in this book are the themes of gardens, children, spiritual topographies, death, and hope. From the vitalist urban plans of the Scottish polymath Patrick Geddes in India to the Theosophical Society in Madras and the ways in which it provided a context for a novel South Indian garden design; from the visual, textual, and ritual designs of Californian Vedanta from the 1930s to the present; to the spatial transformations associated with post-1990s highways and rapid transit systems in Bangalore that are shaping an emerging “Indian New Age” of religious and somatic self-styling, Srinivas tells the story of contrapuntal histories, the contiguity of lives, and resonances between utopian worlds that are generative of designs for cultural alternatives and futures.
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 221
Book Description
Exploring several utopian imaginaries and practices, A Place for Utopia ties different times together from the early twentieth century to the present, the biographical and the anthropological, the cultural and the conjunctional, South Asia, Europe, and North America. It charts the valency of "utopia" for understanding designs for alternative, occluded, vernacular, or emergent urbanisms in the last hundred years. Central to the designs for utopia in this book are the themes of gardens, children, spiritual topographies, death, and hope. From the vitalist urban plans of the Scottish polymath Patrick Geddes in India to the Theosophical Society in Madras and the ways in which it provided a context for a novel South Indian garden design; from the visual, textual, and ritual designs of Californian Vedanta from the 1930s to the present; to the spatial transformations associated with post-1990s highways and rapid transit systems in Bangalore that are shaping an emerging “Indian New Age” of religious and somatic self-styling, Srinivas tells the story of contrapuntal histories, the contiguity of lives, and resonances between utopian worlds that are generative of designs for cultural alternatives and futures.
Heartland of the Imagination
Author: Jeffrey J. Folks
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786488042
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 213
Book Description
Conservative strands in American literature are often overlooked in university courses. This book focuses on the works of conservative American writers and of others who have written of America from a conservative perspective. Beginning with the work of Edgar Allan Poe, the book explores the traditionalist temper in books by Vachel Lindsay, James Agee, Flannery O'Connor, V.S. Naipaul, and Kent Haruf. Drawing on the theories of Lewis P. Simpson, Leszek Kolakowski, Roger Scruton, and Gertrude Himmelfarb, among others, this text offers a fresh examination of a significant aspect of American literature.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786488042
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 213
Book Description
Conservative strands in American literature are often overlooked in university courses. This book focuses on the works of conservative American writers and of others who have written of America from a conservative perspective. Beginning with the work of Edgar Allan Poe, the book explores the traditionalist temper in books by Vachel Lindsay, James Agee, Flannery O'Connor, V.S. Naipaul, and Kent Haruf. Drawing on the theories of Lewis P. Simpson, Leszek Kolakowski, Roger Scruton, and Gertrude Himmelfarb, among others, this text offers a fresh examination of a significant aspect of American literature.
The United Utopian States of America
Author: Dave Sampson
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1467822159
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
The United Utopian States of America is a politically inspired book that points out numerous things that liberals in power are doing to compromise the safety, independence, and well being of our country. It depicts a nation that the liberals are working so hard to achieve. It then destroys the concepts and logic the liberals use in an attempt to further their push towards a perfect world. The author uses humor, sarcasm, and more common sense than can be found in the entire Democratic Party, to entertain as well as alert Americans of the danger posed by the liberal agenda. If America wishes to continue to thrive as a world leader, Americans need to become more aware of the things being done internally in our country that jeopardize that possibility. By banning drilling on domestic soil, liberals insure our dependence on foreign nations. By forcing our soldiers to fight sensitive battles liberals deny them the ability to win wars. By removing Christianity from all aspects of American society, liberals insure eventual chaos and the moral breakdown of our country. By excusing bad behavior by pointing to worse behavior, liberals prove they are unfit leaders and miserably unable to keep our nation strong, respected and admired. This book is a great way to look at what the left considers utopia and at the same time shows us exactly why the perfect world will be forever unattainable. It also points out how dangerous it would be to allow the left to implement its plan to create an American utopia. When a liberal makes demands hes actually selling you something you really dont want. When he tells you something, its a pretty good bet your getting less than half the truth on any given matter. Its not a good idea to trust liberals with the security of our nation and its an even worse idea to ignore their efforts to further their agenda. By ignoring their ridiculous claims and ideas, weve allowed liberals to get a foothold and with that theyve been able to gain ground. In fact, if we dont put and end to their foolishness soon this land wont be ours anymore. It will be theirs. Please enjoy The United Utopian States of America, and please be aware of the harm directed at our nation by liberals in the modern Democratic Party. Tell your friends and family to vote and to vote Right if you wish to continue enjoying freedom and prosperity here in America.
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1467822159
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
The United Utopian States of America is a politically inspired book that points out numerous things that liberals in power are doing to compromise the safety, independence, and well being of our country. It depicts a nation that the liberals are working so hard to achieve. It then destroys the concepts and logic the liberals use in an attempt to further their push towards a perfect world. The author uses humor, sarcasm, and more common sense than can be found in the entire Democratic Party, to entertain as well as alert Americans of the danger posed by the liberal agenda. If America wishes to continue to thrive as a world leader, Americans need to become more aware of the things being done internally in our country that jeopardize that possibility. By banning drilling on domestic soil, liberals insure our dependence on foreign nations. By forcing our soldiers to fight sensitive battles liberals deny them the ability to win wars. By removing Christianity from all aspects of American society, liberals insure eventual chaos and the moral breakdown of our country. By excusing bad behavior by pointing to worse behavior, liberals prove they are unfit leaders and miserably unable to keep our nation strong, respected and admired. This book is a great way to look at what the left considers utopia and at the same time shows us exactly why the perfect world will be forever unattainable. It also points out how dangerous it would be to allow the left to implement its plan to create an American utopia. When a liberal makes demands hes actually selling you something you really dont want. When he tells you something, its a pretty good bet your getting less than half the truth on any given matter. Its not a good idea to trust liberals with the security of our nation and its an even worse idea to ignore their efforts to further their agenda. By ignoring their ridiculous claims and ideas, weve allowed liberals to get a foothold and with that theyve been able to gain ground. In fact, if we dont put and end to their foolishness soon this land wont be ours anymore. It will be theirs. Please enjoy The United Utopian States of America, and please be aware of the harm directed at our nation by liberals in the modern Democratic Party. Tell your friends and family to vote and to vote Right if you wish to continue enjoying freedom and prosperity here in America.
Old-Fashioned Modernism
Author: Andy Oler
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807171611
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
The Midwest holds two conflicting positions in the American cultural imagination, both of which rob the region of its distinctiveness. Often, it is seen as the “heartland,” a pastoral ideal standing in for all of American culture. Alternatively, the Midwest can represent “flyover country,” part of an expansive, undifferentiated mass between the coasts. In Old-Fashioned Modernism: Rural Masculinity and Midwestern Literature, Andy Oler challenges both views by pairing fiction and poetry from the region with cultural and material texts that illustrate the processes by which regional modernism both opposes and absorbs prevailing models of twentieth-century manhood. Although it acknowledges a tradition of Midwestern urban literature, Old-Fashioned Modernism focuses on representations of life on farms and in small towns that generate specific forms of rural modernity. Oler considers a series of male protagonists who both fulfill and resist conventional American narratives of economic advancement, spatial experience, and gender roles. The writers he studies portray the onset of socioeconomic and mechanical modernity by merging realist and naturalist narratives with upwellings of modernist form and style. His analysis charts a trajectory in which Midwestern literature depicts experiences that appear dependent on nostalgic pastoralism but actually foreground the ongoing fragmentation and emerging anxieties of the countryside. In detailed readings of novels by Sherwood Anderson, William Cunningham, Langston Hughes, Wright Morris, and Dawn Powell, as well as the poetry of Lorine Niedecker, Oler highlights images of men from the rural Midwest who face the tensions between agricultural production and mass industrialization. These works of literature, which Oler examines alongside pieces of material culture like advertisements for farm implements and record labels, feature communities that support self-made as well as corporate identities. As portraits of the Midwest that resist the totalizing trajectory of industrialization, these texts generate spaces that meld rural and urban economics, land use, and affective experiences. Old-Fashioned Modernism reveals how Midwestern regionalism negotiates the anxieties and dominant narratives of early- and midcentury rural masculinities, as regional literature and culture alter the forms and spaces of literary modernism.
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807171611
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
The Midwest holds two conflicting positions in the American cultural imagination, both of which rob the region of its distinctiveness. Often, it is seen as the “heartland,” a pastoral ideal standing in for all of American culture. Alternatively, the Midwest can represent “flyover country,” part of an expansive, undifferentiated mass between the coasts. In Old-Fashioned Modernism: Rural Masculinity and Midwestern Literature, Andy Oler challenges both views by pairing fiction and poetry from the region with cultural and material texts that illustrate the processes by which regional modernism both opposes and absorbs prevailing models of twentieth-century manhood. Although it acknowledges a tradition of Midwestern urban literature, Old-Fashioned Modernism focuses on representations of life on farms and in small towns that generate specific forms of rural modernity. Oler considers a series of male protagonists who both fulfill and resist conventional American narratives of economic advancement, spatial experience, and gender roles. The writers he studies portray the onset of socioeconomic and mechanical modernity by merging realist and naturalist narratives with upwellings of modernist form and style. His analysis charts a trajectory in which Midwestern literature depicts experiences that appear dependent on nostalgic pastoralism but actually foreground the ongoing fragmentation and emerging anxieties of the countryside. In detailed readings of novels by Sherwood Anderson, William Cunningham, Langston Hughes, Wright Morris, and Dawn Powell, as well as the poetry of Lorine Niedecker, Oler highlights images of men from the rural Midwest who face the tensions between agricultural production and mass industrialization. These works of literature, which Oler examines alongside pieces of material culture like advertisements for farm implements and record labels, feature communities that support self-made as well as corporate identities. As portraits of the Midwest that resist the totalizing trajectory of industrialization, these texts generate spaces that meld rural and urban economics, land use, and affective experiences. Old-Fashioned Modernism reveals how Midwestern regionalism negotiates the anxieties and dominant narratives of early- and midcentury rural masculinities, as regional literature and culture alter the forms and spaces of literary modernism.
A Socialist Utopia in the New South
Author: William Fitzhugh Brundage
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252065484
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
"A definitive account of the Ruskin colonies and of their place in the larger social radical strivings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. . . . Well written and solidly researched, it gives us an understanding of an important quest for heaven on earth." -- Edward K. Spann, author of Brotherly Tomorrows: Movements for a Cooperative Society in America, 1820-1920 This first book-length study of the Ruskin colonies shows how several hundred utopian socialists gathered as a cooperative community in Tennessee and Georgia in the late nineteenth century. The communitarians' noble but fatally flawed act of social endeavor revealed the courage and desperation they felt as they searched for alternatives to the chaotic and competitive individualism of the age of robber barons and for a viable model for a just and humane society at a time of profound uncertainty about public life in the United States.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252065484
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
"A definitive account of the Ruskin colonies and of their place in the larger social radical strivings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. . . . Well written and solidly researched, it gives us an understanding of an important quest for heaven on earth." -- Edward K. Spann, author of Brotherly Tomorrows: Movements for a Cooperative Society in America, 1820-1920 This first book-length study of the Ruskin colonies shows how several hundred utopian socialists gathered as a cooperative community in Tennessee and Georgia in the late nineteenth century. The communitarians' noble but fatally flawed act of social endeavor revealed the courage and desperation they felt as they searched for alternatives to the chaotic and competitive individualism of the age of robber barons and for a viable model for a just and humane society at a time of profound uncertainty about public life in the United States.
Greetings from Utopia Park
Author: Claire Hoffman
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062338862
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
In this engrossing, provocative, and intimate memoir, a young journalist reflects on her childhood in the heartland, growing up in an increasingly isolated meditation community in the 1980s and ’90s—a fascinating, disturbing look at a fringe culture and its true believers. When Claire Hoffman’s alcoholic father abandons his family, his desperate wife, Liz, tells five-year-old Claire and her seven-year-old brother, Stacey, that they are going to heaven—Iowa—to live in Maharishi’s national headquarters for Heaven on Earth. For Claire’s mother, Transcendental Meditation—the Maharishi’s method of meditation and his approach to living the fullest possible life—was a salvo that promised world peace and enlightenment just as their family fell apart. At first this secluded utopia offers warmth and support, and makes these outsiders feel calm, secure, and connected to the world. At the Maharishi School, Claire learns Maharishi’s philosophy for living and meditates with her class. With the promise of peace and enlightenment constantly on the horizon, every day is infused with magic and meaning. But as Claire and Stacey mature, their adolescent skepticism kicks in, drawing them away from the community and into delinquency and drugs. To save herself, Claire moves to California with her father and breaks from Maharishi completely. After a decade of working in journalism and academia, the challenges of adulthood propel her back to Iowa, where she reexamines her spiritual upbringing and tries to reconnect with the magic of her childhood. Greetings from Utopia Park takes us deep into this complex, unusual world, illuminating its joys and comforts, and its disturbing problems. While there is no utopia on earth, Hoffman reveals, there are noble goals worth striving for: believing in belief, inner peace, and a firm understanding that there is a larger fabric of the universe to which we all belong.
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062338862
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
In this engrossing, provocative, and intimate memoir, a young journalist reflects on her childhood in the heartland, growing up in an increasingly isolated meditation community in the 1980s and ’90s—a fascinating, disturbing look at a fringe culture and its true believers. When Claire Hoffman’s alcoholic father abandons his family, his desperate wife, Liz, tells five-year-old Claire and her seven-year-old brother, Stacey, that they are going to heaven—Iowa—to live in Maharishi’s national headquarters for Heaven on Earth. For Claire’s mother, Transcendental Meditation—the Maharishi’s method of meditation and his approach to living the fullest possible life—was a salvo that promised world peace and enlightenment just as their family fell apart. At first this secluded utopia offers warmth and support, and makes these outsiders feel calm, secure, and connected to the world. At the Maharishi School, Claire learns Maharishi’s philosophy for living and meditates with her class. With the promise of peace and enlightenment constantly on the horizon, every day is infused with magic and meaning. But as Claire and Stacey mature, their adolescent skepticism kicks in, drawing them away from the community and into delinquency and drugs. To save herself, Claire moves to California with her father and breaks from Maharishi completely. After a decade of working in journalism and academia, the challenges of adulthood propel her back to Iowa, where she reexamines her spiritual upbringing and tries to reconnect with the magic of her childhood. Greetings from Utopia Park takes us deep into this complex, unusual world, illuminating its joys and comforts, and its disturbing problems. While there is no utopia on earth, Hoffman reveals, there are noble goals worth striving for: believing in belief, inner peace, and a firm understanding that there is a larger fabric of the universe to which we all belong.