Dreams of Peace and Freedom: Utopian Moments in the Twentieth Century

By Jay Murray Winter

Book Overview

"Winter is an acclaimed cultural historian of World War I and early 20th-century conflicts. Here, with refreshing, new-millennium insight, he reflects on inter-world war attempts-excluding the awful accomplishments born of the ostensibly idealistic goals of the century's roster of monster totalitarians-to build a better, fairer society on a grand scale. . . . Highly recommended."-Library Journal "To anyone with a flame of utopian hope still flickering in his or her soul, this moving, wise, and passionate book can only be a blessing."-Stanley Hoffman, Foreign Affairs Jay Winter is Charles J. Stille Professor of History, Yale University. He is author or coauthor of more than a dozen books including Remembering War: The Great War between Memory and History in the 20th Century, published by Yale University Press.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300126026
• ISBN13: 9780300126020
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.0" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Utopian Ideals in the 20th Century

An excellent work on various utopian ideas of the 20th century. Winter's writing is very good and this makes for an enjoyable read. Winter focuses on "minor utopias," thus avoiding Nazism and Communism. He covers a number if different dreamers and attempts at making the world a better place--many of which are now almost forgotten. I very much enjoyed the chapter on the the role of Rene Cassin in the development of the Universal Declaration of human Rights of 1948. White writes: "What distinguishes them from others is that they then get up and (perhaps against reason or logic) do not turn cynical or passive, but manage to take a leap into the dark, and despite all, they dream dreams which reconfigure their initial commitment in new and imaginative forms." Indeed. We could use a few more of those types right now...