A Rational Millennium

Download or read book A Rational Millennium written by James Holstun and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1987 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking a new approach to the history of utopia, this volume combines the political study of literary form with the literary study of political rhetoric. After arguing that early modern utopists, both literary and non-literary, attempt to reshape displaced populations, Holstun concentrates on two utopian projects of the mid-17th century: the political platforms and Algonquin "praying towns" of John Eliot in Massachusetts and the republican political writing of James Harrington in Protectorate England. Moving between these projects and modern analyses of rationalization, he shows that Puritan utopia shares the modern Western longing for universal social discipline and that it envisions this discipline as the rational means to the Millennium.