No Place Else Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction

Writers have created fictions of social per­fection at least since Plato'sRepublic.Sir Thomas More gave this thread of intel­lectual history a name when he called his contribution to itUtopia,Greek fornoplace. With each subsequent author cog­nizant of his predecessors and subject to altered real-world conditions which sug­gest ever-new causes for hope and alarm, "no place" changed. The fourteen essays presented in this book critically assess man's fascination with and seeking for "no place." "In discussing these central fictions, the contributors see ‘no place' from di­verse perspectives: the sociological, the psychological, the political, the aesthetic. In revealing the roots of these works, the contributors cast back along the whole length of utopian thought. Each essay stands alo≠ together, the essays make clear what ‘no place' means today. While it may be true that ‘no place' has always seemed elsewhere or elsewhen, in fact all utopian fiction whirls contemporary ac­tors through a costume dance no place else but here."--from the Preface The contributors are Eric S. Rabkin, B. G. Knepper, Thomas J.Remington, Gorman Beauchamp, William Matter, Ken Davis, Kenneth M. Roemer, Wil­liam Steinhoff, Howard Segal, Jack Zipes, Kathleen Woodward, Merritt Abrash, and James W. Bittner.Rabkin, Eric S. is the author of 'No Place Else Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction' with ISBN 9780809311132 and ISBN 0809311135.