Swirski is a Professor of American Culture and Literature at the University of Missouri and Research Director at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. They are, in Swirski's words, "thought experiments at their limits." Utopian novels likewise present an idealized portrait of the social world. They have much in common with the elegant models deployed in the physical sciences, models that present an idealized picture of reality scrubbed clean of the messiness and "noise" of the real world. Although utopian dreams cannot possibly be realized, they are nevertheless of great practical significance. Utopia is, by definition, an ever-receding mirage-it is literally no place.
To this end, he attends to five novels spanning six decades, treating each as a thought experiment on the relationship human nature and the assumptions underpinning programs of social engineering. Peter Swirski's American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and Political History explores this idea through the lens of post-WWII American literature. Why is it that the quest for paradise leaves such misery in its wake? Perhaps this can be explained by a gap between our human nature and our utopian aspirations. History teaches us that that these vaunted utopias have a way of turning very sour-the greatest bloodbaths of the 20th century have been in the service of utopian visions. But are we always landing on the utopias that we picture? Not really. Maps picture the world, and Wilde was right to assert that representations of utopia are of great value. Oscar Wilde famously remarked that "A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing." The map, however, is not the territory.
: : available at Amazon US, Amazon Canada, and Amazon EU : : "American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and Political History" by Peter Swirski (Routledge, 2011) AMERICAN UTOPIA AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING IN LITERATURE, SOCIAL THOUGHT, AND POLITICAL HISTORY
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