Dreams of peace and freedom: utopian moments in the twentieth century

Abstract

World history is often written as a series of wars, large conflicts that stem from leaders who imagine that the world would be a better place “if I owned that land,” “if they used our political policy,” or “if only the superior race existed.” Jay Winter has termed these events “major utopias,” ideas that “uproot, cleanse, transform, exterminate.” In Dreams of Peace and Freedom, Winter chronicles the “‘minor utopias,’ imaginings of liberation usually on a smaller scale, without the grandiose pretensions or the almost unimaginable hubris and cruelties of the ‘major’ utopian projects.” By presenting these minor utopias against the backdrop of conflicts in the 20th century, Winter paints a vivid picture of incremental progressions toward the ideals of peace and freedom. Winter focuses on six moments when, following a major event, people were able to reflect on the past and imagine a better future. The turn of the century brought a global economy and the widespread use of photography, which was used to capture the cultures and peoples around the world in hopes that familiarity would breed acceptance. Following the Great War, President Woodrow Wilson posited that self-determination, the ability of a country to determine its own political future, would bring an end to international conflict. In 1937, on the verge of another war, the World’s Fair in Paris presented technology as the vehicle of peace, an idea shattered with the advent of the atomic bomb. The social movements of the 20th century are marked by the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. These movements continued into the 1960s, a period marked by the liberation of people everywhere, mostly through peaceful uprisings. Finally, the 1990s brought the concept of global citizenship, that individuals can think of themselves as the object of change, to end “poverty, oppression, humiliation, and collective violence. Put into the optimistic perspective that Winter provides, it is apparent these minor utopians have had great success in bringing about change. It is the small movements that challenge the past, reject inertia, and set the stage for the large changes. The minor utopias in the first half of the century used economic globalization to bring about the idea of international interdependency and partnership among European nations, ending the conflicts in that continent. The second half of the century brought ideas of freedom and equality, challenging the notion that one group of people is more important than another. Most importantly, perhaps, is the idea that an individual can effect these changes, if only incrementally, a truth that is emphasized in the final chapter. Dreams of Peace and Freedom is an academic look at the minor social and political movements in the 20th century that reverberate into the 21st century. Without making explicit comparisons, Winter delivers insight into the conflicts of today and inspires the reader to imagine utopias and the projects that might bring about positive change.