What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life
by Kristen R. Ghodsee
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Readers' rating:
Published May 2023
352 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
A dazzling tour through 2,000 years of audacious utopian thinking and experiments, exploring better ways to arrange our daily lives, plus a globetrotting jaunt to the communities already putting these seemingly fanciful visions into practice today.
In the 6th century BCE, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras—a man remembered today more for his theorem about right-angled triangles than for his progressive politics—founded a commune in a seaside village in what's now southern Italy. The men and women there shared their property, lived as equals, and dedicated themselves to the study of mathematics and the mysteries of the universe.
Ever since, humans have been dreaming up better ways to organize how we live together, share our property, raise our children, and determine who's part of our families. Some of these experiments burned brightly for only a brief while—but others carry on today.
In Everyday Utopia, fascinatingly feminist thinker Kristen R. Ghodsee whisks you away on a tour through history and around the world to explore those places that have boldly dared to reimagine how we might live our daily lives: from the Danish cohousing communities that share chores and deepen neighborly bonds to matriarchal Colombian ecovillages where residents grow all their own food; and from Connecticut, where new laws make it easier for extra "alloparents" to help raise children not their own, to China, where planned microdistricts ensure everything a busy household might need is nearby.
One of those startlingly rare books that upends what you think is possible, Everyday Utopia offers a radically hopeful vision for how to build more contented and connected societies, alongside a practical guide to what we all can do in the meantime to live the good life each and every day.
"Clear-eyed yet exuberant, wide-ranging yet intimate, this is an inspiring call for imagining a better future."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Lively…. Though Ghodsee's proposals are decidedly utopian, readers who think deeper about them may agree that reshaping society is not such an unworkable thing after all."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Perfect for readers interested in utopian societies, history, and sociology and for those looking for an uplifting look at what the future may hold."
—Booklist
"My god, this book is what I need right now! Exhilarating, good humored, and forward looking, it's blown open my brain. What a powerful reminder that dreaming of better worlds is not just some fantastical project, but also a very serious political one."
—Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad
"More could be possible than we imagine—that's the liberating and inspirational message of Kristen Ghodsee's sweeping feminist history of society at its most creative. What a gift she's given us with this mind-broadening investigation into how for millennia our fellow human beings have reckoned with the toughest questions of fidelity, family, and love."
—Ada Calhoun, New York Times bestselling author of Why We Can't Sleep
"Kristen Ghodsee has boldly gone where few would dare to tread. In this warm, intelligent, and lucid book, she takes us on a deep dive into how people have created better systems for living—systems that actually work. With clear-eyed views of how utopian communities can promote human thriving, she offers hope in a time when we desperately need new ways of imagining the future."
—Robert Waldinger, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Life and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development
"Utopia is back! And it ought to be taken seriously, as history is made by the dreamers. If you want to open up new futures for our private lives, please have a look at this refreshing book. A must-read."
—Thomas Piketty, New York Times bestselling author of A Brief History of Equality
"Invigorating writing for a cheerless era. Having explained to us Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism, Kristen Ghodsee is back with another splendid insight: utopia can, and ought to, be an everyday thing, in every home."
—Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Minister of Finance and author of Talking to My Daughter About the Economy
This information about Everyday Utopia was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kristen R. Ghodsee is a Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the critically acclaimed author of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence, which has been translated into fourteen languages. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Jacobin, among other outlets, and she's appeared on PBS NewsHour and France 24 as well as on dozens of podcasts, including NPR's Throughline and New York magazine's The Cut. She lives outside of Philadelphia.
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