VOYAGES TO UTOPIA CL - Tapa dura

The perennial quest for a better society has, all too often, ended in disappointment, enforced conformity and even terror, yet at other times utopian vision has created a good place in which to live. Sociologist William McCord traces the realities of utopian ventures: those that have already changed the world and offer the promise or peril of future influence. He examines such utopias as those created by the kibbutzniks of Israel and the flower children of California; religious communities founded by the Franciscans and Gandhi's descendants in India; socialist societies that have tried to live out Marxist myths; the welfare state in Denmark and capitalist "paradises" in Confucian Singapore. The author also recounts the progress and the price of such ventures.