p This book is about the American Utopia. The reader may well wonder what, in our age of realism, can prompt a historian or a philosopher to tackle the subject of the social Utopia—to all intents and purposes, a theme quite far from reality.

p Paradoxically, it is only taking into consideration phenomena "far from reality" such as the social Utopia or the social myth that one can construct a model of actual social consciousness and of actual culture, whether at the national or global level.

p Indeed, to grasp the mentality of a nation (or of an individual) one must examine all dimensions of its (or his) awareness, including illusions and dreams, especially those represented definitively as an integral element of national culture. To achieve this, one has to enter the realm of Utopia where a person with an open mind will be able to unravel many mysteries inherent in this awareness.

p The reason is that Utopias are coded expressions of social ideals and actual interests of classes, groups and individuals, interests which manifest themselves both in everyday political behavior and in the ideological struggle within this or that country or on the international scene. And so, decoding Utopias can aid in ensuring a more profound understanding of people’s attitude to the existing society, of their convictions, expectations, concepts of the future and social ideals.

p Besides, the historical record shows that Utopias are far from indifferent to actual historical developments. Marx’s famous words about ideas becoming a great material force when they permeate the masses are perfectly applicable to Utopias. Utopian ideas often become widespread in mass consciousness and demonstrate enviable resilience.

p As to the American Utopian tradition, a Marxist historian has quite adequate reasons to turn to this particular subject. The traditional picture of America is that of a country whose national consciousness, distinctly hostile to any visionary ideas, is rooted in pragmatism and clear, sober thinking; in other words, it is based on realism in theory and practice and rules out, either completely or largely, any Utopian schemes.

p This picture is only partly true. Yes, the conditions of America’s colonization and subsequent development did breed shrewdness in practical matters, a sober-minded attitude to life and similar traits in Americans. The distinctive features displayed by the development of capitalism in the United States also promoted the spread of empiricism; this was reflected clearly in national culture. But, objectively, those same conditions prodded the shaping of Utopian consciousness in American society. The conviction that the riches of the new continent were inexhaustible and that personal initiative would not encounter any rigid obstacles, the impression of economic, political and religious freedom, together with the Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism concepts gradually took shape, combined to provide fertile soil for libertarianism in both theory and practice, for the development of the sociological imagination and the emergence of social and political schemes which were often Utopian to a considerable degree and bold to the point of adventurism. It appeared that in the new country nothing was impossible: even the least feasible of dreams could be translated into reality, any type of resistance by objective reality could be eventually broken if only one was vigorous enough and confident in one’s own abilities. That was how the American Dream was born, how American Utopian consciousness and the American social Utopia were shaped.

p Of course, the American contribution to Utopian literature is much smaller than the British, French, German or Italian. The New World failed to produce great Utopians such as More, Fourier or Owen. But one must not lose sight of the fact that there was one aspect in which the United States played a great role which has not been appreciated properly to this day. I refer to Utopian experiments, conducted in America on a scale unprecedented in other countries. The United States was the proving ground for testing, with different degrees of success, projects designed in the “laboratories” of Cabet, Owen, Fourier and other European—and, later, American—Utopian theorists. It would be no exaggeration to say that a careful and all-round examination of these experiments and their comparison with similar undertakings in other countries can contribute to our knowledge not only of America’s intellectual and political historical development but also of the overall laws 6 guiding the realization of ideas in sociopolitical practice.

p I am fully aware that I am not the first to attempt a study of the’American Utopia. The works of V. L. Parrington, V. L. Parrington, Jr., Glenn Negley and J. Max Patrick, H. W. Morgan, Kenneth Roemer, Arthur Bestor, Mark Hollo way, Charles Nordhoff and John H. Noyes, to name but a few, and of my Soviet colleagues Eduard Arab-Ogly, M. Zakharova, M. Avdeyeva and other historians and philosophers have done much to ensure a proper understanding of the question. At the same time, I do not believe I am the last one to tackle this theme. And so, without attempting to offer an exhaustive treatment of an inexhaustible subject, I propose to trace the principal stages in the development of Utopian consciousness in the United States and single out the main types of social Utopias which have sprung from American soil. My aim is to try and show how, as social and political conditions connected with the development of the nation and American capitalism evolved, the Utopian tradition evolved too; how one type of Utopia ousted another or absorbed a new content; how Utopian ideals transformed; and finally, how the role of Utopia changed in social and political affairs.

Since a number of issues examined in the book give rise to differences of opinion (including the question of Utopia’s nature, essence and functions), I deemed it necessary to preface the specific historical analysis with a chapter on theory and methodology to determine the scope and content of the key concepts used throughout the book. By discussing questions of methodology and identifying the links of Utopias to society’s material functions we are clearing the way towards understanding the phenomenon of social Utopia in the U.S.A. and, on a broader plane, American social consciousness.