Text, Image, and the Problem With Perfection in Nineteenth-Century France: Utopia and Its Afterlives

Examining the question of why 19th-century France produced so few utopian literary texts, Sipe (French, U. of Missouri) is intrigued with the idea that in France utopianism had migrated from literature to the social sciences. He studies this theme in connection with works by Chateaubriand, Hugo, Cabet, Grandville, Courbet, and Baudelaire. The final chapter is on gendered utopias and female automata. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)