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by Paul Berman

ISBN: 0393039277
Author: Paul Berman
Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1 edition (July 1, 1996)
Language: English
Pages: 351
ePub: 1644 kb
Fb2: 1852 kb
Rating: 4.2
Other formats: mobi azw docx mbr
Category: Different
Subcategory: Humanities

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A Tale of Two Utopias book.

A Tale of Two Utopias book. The ideological passions that, along with critical acclaim, greeted the publication of Paul Berman's A Tale of Two Utopias showed how persistent are some of the battle lines drawn in the tumultuous years around 1968.

He lives in New York City.

generation of 1968 - not the whole story, (which could never squeeze into a single book), but four representative episodes.

A Tale of Two Utopias is the story of the generation of 1968 - not the whole story, (which could never squeeze into a single book), but four representative episodes. It is the story of student radicalism in the years around 1968 - in America and around the world. Andre Glucksmann and the New Philosophers of Paris, Tom Hayden and Students for a Democratic Society, the Gay Liberation Front, Frank Zappa, Vaclav Havel and the Velvet Revolution, Francis Fukuyama and his "End of History"-Those are the faces and figures of A Tale of Two Utopias.

A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968. Norton & Company, 1996. In this comparative study, Paul Berman examines what he calls the "generation of 1968" in four settings: student uprisings (largely political) in the United States, the "uprising in the zone of the spirit" (p. 8), the challenge to western imperialism, and finally the left-wing revolt against Communism, particularly in Czechoslovakia. Although at first blush this reads like a rather neat packaging of change in the late 1960s, Berman's study is really much more than that.

Social history, Social history, Liberalism, Radicalism, Gay liberation movement, History. The dream of a new society - The moral history of the Baby Boom generation - The gay awakening - Zappa and Havel - A backward glance at the end of history. Books for People with Print Disabilities. Internet Archive Books. Uploaded by Lotu Tii on February 26, 2013.

Berman traces several of the more distinctive movements (Tom Hayden's Students for a Democratic Society, the .

Berman traces several of the more distinctive movements (Tom Hayden's Students for a Democratic Society, the gay liberation movement, and the Paris Maoists) and contrasts them with the peaceful anti-Communist ""revolution"" of 1989 that resulted in the collapse of pro-Soviet regimes throughout Europe. In tantalizing but tangential essays, Berman throws in the Stonewall Riot, the 1990 visit of Frank Zappa to Czechoslovakia, and Francis Fukuyama's musings on the ""end of history,"" with nebulous results. An intelligent and well-reasoned effort.

A Tale of Two Utopias is actually four separate lengthy essays by Paul Berman on the worldwide student rebellion of 1968, the gay liberation movement in the United. A Tale of Two Utopias recounts "in clean, clear, often funny style" ( Washington Post ) four episodes in the history of a generation: the worldwide student radicalism of the years around 1968; the birth of gay liberation and modern identity politics; the anti-Communist trajectory of the '68ers in the Eastern bloc; and the ideals and self-criticism of thinkers in America and.

A Tale of Two Utopias is actually four separate lengthy essays by Paul Berman on the worldwide student rebellion of 1968, the gay liberation movement in the United States, Vaclav Havel and the overthrow of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, and the response of French intellectual community to the "end of history" theory. What ties these subjects is a strange contrast. The student movement of the 1960s was rooted in peace and other left-leaning ideals; the overthrow of Communism sprung from a desire of free-market economics.

A Tale of Two Utopias is an exceedingly odd book. If the air is thin in the course of this journey it is nonetheless cloying-likewise the arguments, or what pass for arguments. Mr. Berman is a disappointed radical. But his disappointments have not led him to abandon his radicalism.

Paul Lawrence Berman (born 1949) is an American writer on politics and literature

Paul Lawrence Berman (born 1949) is an American writer on politics and literature. His books include Terror and Liberalism (a New York Times best-seller in 2003), The Flight of the Intellectuals, A Tale of Two Utopias, Power and the Idealists, and an illustrated children's book, Make-Believe Empire.

A noted author brings to life the moral earnestness and confusions of the baby boom generation, weaving threads of revolutionary expectation and libertarian exuberance into a lasting commentary on ideological evolution. Tour.

Comments: (4)

Throw her heart

I value this book for two principal reasons: (1) Berman clarified many events that occured during this period but that I did not directly observe. Because , at that time, my informatioln was so well controlled by the corporate/ government press I was simply unaware that anything of much substance was going on. Protests were simply presented a childish tantrums of spoiled fools. Their worldwide nature was kept obscured by the propaganda system.
(2) Additionally, the utopian nature and severe disconnect from reality of much of what was occurring had not been clear to me. The weaknesses of so many who see themselves as "pholosophers" was brought out by Berman. This accords with my evolving view that one does best when he fixes on relieving a specific problelm rather than looking for an overall solution to many problems at once. This view has come to me in my old age. Probably it would be too frustrating for me in my youth.
At times the book was slow going; but, then he would make a worth while point and redeam himself. I'm glad I read it ; but, I wouldn't suggest it for a general readersh such as a book club.

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Foxanayn

Read this book for a book club. Can't say I liked it. The book read very much like a textbook. And I came of age in the 60s. It was a turbulent and interesting time. The author, in my opinion, did not capture the era.

Anaginn

This is probably the most optimistic of the Berman books I have read thus far for in it he imparts to the reader (by the wonderful flow of his writing as much as in the stories he tells) something of the spirit of 1968. "A utopian exhilaration swept across the student universe," he writes. "Almost everyone in my own circle of friends and classmates was caught up in it. ... Partly it was a belief, hard to remember today, that a superior new society was already coming into existence. And it was the belief that we ourselves--the teenage revolutionaries, freaks, hippies and students--stood at the heart of a new society." And the revolutionaries worked hard to create this new society. They held endless meetings, endless debates, marched, protested, sang, sometimes risked their lives all in the name of democracy and a better world. And then something went wrong.

Somehow the idealists found themselves allied with terrorists; their democratic societies either disbanded or taken over by totalitarians until in 1972 (after the racism, the anti-Semitism, the assassination campaigns, and the kidnappings had gone un-commented because "you couldn't speak ill of the guerrillas") "there were Israeli corpses stretched out on the German soil."

How did this happen? It happened, Berman explains because the idealists didn't "know the difference between democrats and totalitarians" and thus concluded that the totalitarians were "social democrats with courage"--and let the totalitarians take over their organizations. And once the totalitarians took over, the assassinations and the mayhem began and the drive for a liberal democracy (if it remained a goal at all) was put very much on the back burner. And the student movements that sparked the utopian exhilaration that spread across the globe either dissolved (the French chose to dissolve after the Munich massacre) or fragmented into tiny and ineffective splinters. (And anyone who reads the newspapers today knows that this left-wing naivete in the face of totalitarianism is part of the legacy left us by the `68ers.) And even so, things did change and for the better.

Women and homosexual and ethnic minorities did achieve more social equality. And these groups are (even now) inspiring other minorities such as the disabled community) to follow suit. And those are just the legacies in the West. In Eastern Europe, there were the revolutions of 1989--revolutions Berman argues that were the direct descendants of the best of 1968. How did that happen if the 1968 movement itself was hijacked by the totalitarians? To answer that question, Berman turns to George Orwell and finds that Orwell describes Winston's progress from "left wing purity" to "personal integrity and private life". The left-wing purity did not survive the assault of the totalitarians. The democrats were too naïve and too poorly organized to withstand that assault. But something from 1968 did survive--and it was the belief that one must be true to yourself. Personal integrity, if you will. (The Julia moment, Berman calls it.)

It was the Julia moment that, in the end, brought down the Berlin Wall and it was the Julia moment that, Berman acknowledges, set the world lurching however hesitantly toward democratization. Unfortunately, the spread of human liberty has never come without a price. And what is more the spread of democratization has a distinctly Western tinge. And "the struggle between certainty and doubt that has taken such apocalyptic forms in the twentieth century lies at the heart of Western civilization, and with the spread of Western civilization around the world, the struggle is never going to be resolved. .. It is the unstoppable roar that arises from terrifying news."

And so what is the legacy of 1968? More personal freedom, more liberty (at least personal freedom) for many people, perhaps a spread of democracy even and a terrifying roar of fundamentalism.

Did 1968 leave a legacy? Oh, yes. And Berman's A Tale of Two Utopias is perhaps the most readable explanation of it. I highly recommend it.

Steelraven

I had to read this for my modern American grad history course. Not knowing who Paul Berman was, I picked up the book expecting very little. Naturally, Berman's perspective revolutionized my intellectual outlook.

Hard to classify, Berman believes that the ultimate legacy of '68 is not radical Leftist polemics (which ultimately descended into totalitarianism itself) but rather the rise of identity politics--a new means to express every aspect of who one is.

Berman writes in the long tradition of great Americans like Daniel Bell who challenged dogma in favor of individualism and freedom. Finally, a true LIBERAL who eschews radicalism and shows some faith in mankind.

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