Research Catalog

Title

Dystopia : a natural history : a study of modern despotism, its antecedents, and its literary diffractions / Gregory Claeys.

Author

Claeys, Gregory

Publication

• Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2017.
• ©2017

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 556 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"Dystopia: A Natural History" is the first monograph devoted to the concept of dystopia. Taking the term to encompass both a literary tradition of satirical works, mostly on totalitarianism, as well as real despotisms and societies in a state of disastrous collapse, this volume redefines the central concepts and the chronology of the genre and offers a paradigm-shifting understanding of the subject. Part One assesses the theory and prehistory of 'dystopia.' By contrast to utopia, conceived as promoting an ideal of friendship defined as 'enhanced sociability,' dystopia is defined by estrangement, fear, and the proliferation of 'enemy' categories. A 'natural history' of dystopia thus concentrates upon the centrality of the passion or emotion of fear and hatred in modern despotisms. The work of Le Bon, Freud, and others is used to show how dystopian groups use such emotions. Utopia and dystopia are portrayed not as opposites, but as extremes on a spectrum of sociability, defined by a heightened form of group identity. The prehistory of the process whereby 'enemies' are demonised is explored from early conceptions of monstrosity through Christian conceptions of the devil and witchcraft, and the persecution of heresy. Part Two surveys the major dystopian moments in twentieth century despotisms, focussing in particular upon Nazi Germany, Stalinism, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and Cambodia under Pol Pot. The concentration here is upon the political religion hypothesis as a key explanation for the chief excesses of communism in particular. Part Three examines literary dystopias. It commences well before the usual starting-point in the secondary literature, in anti-Jacobin writings of the 1790s. Two chapters address the main twentieth-century texts usually studied as representative of the genre, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The remainder of the section examines the evolution of the genre in the second half of the twentieth century down to the present.

Alternative Title

Study of modern despotism, its antecedents, and its literary diffractions

Subject

• 1900-1999
• Dystopias > History
• Dystopias in literature
• Totalitarianism > History > 20th century
• Totalitarianism in literature
• Dystopias
• Totalitarianism

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 503-542) and index.

Contents

Part 1. The theory and pre-history of dystopia -- Rethinking the political dystopia: the group and the crowd -- Monstrosity and the origin of dystopian space -- Part 2. Totalitarianism and dystopia -- The caveman's century: the development of totalitarianism from Jacobinism to Stalinism -- Totalitarianism from Hitler to Pol Pot -- Part 3. The literary revolt against collectivism -- Mechanism, collectivism, and humanity: the origins of dystopian literature, 1810-1945 -- The Huxleyan conundrum: Brave New World as anti-utopia -- Vaporizing the Soviet myth: Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four -- The post-totalitarian dystopia, 1950-2015.

Call Number

JFE 17-3108

ISBN

• 9780198785682
• 0198785682

LCCN

2016943110

OCLC

968185187

Author

Claeys, Gregory, author.

Title

Dystopia : a natural history : a study of modern despotism, its antecedents, and its literary diffractions / Gregory Claeys.

Publisher

Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Copyright Date

©2017

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 503-542) and index.

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Research Call Number

JFE 17-3108