What do you think?
Rate this book
A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968
"A deeply moving and delightfully readable account of the political journey [Berman's] generation has taken."―Isaac Kramnick, New York Observer The ideological passions that, along with critical acclaim, greeted the publication of Paul Berman's A Tale of Two Utopias showed how persistent are some of the battle lines drawn in the tumultuous years around 1968.
A Tale of Two Utopias recounts "in clean, clear, often funny style" ( Washington Post ) four episodes in the history of a generation: the worldwide student radicalism of the years around 1968; the birth of gay liberation and modern identity politics; the anti-Communist trajectory of the '68ers in the Eastern bloc; and the ideals and self-criticism of thinkers in America and in France who lived through these events and debated their meaning.
Praised for both "sheer intellectual high-spiritedness" ( Houston Chronicle ) and "the same sensitivity to the moral needs of the participants, and the same lucid evaluative balance, as Edmund Wilson's accounts of earlier periods" (philosopher Richard Rorty), A Tale of Two Utopias firmly establishes Berman as "one of America's leading social critics" ( New Leader ) and "one of our most gifted essayists" ( Boston Globe ).
A Tale of Two Utopias recounts "in clean, clear, often funny style" ( Washington Post ) four episodes in the history of a generation: the worldwide student radicalism of the years around 1968; the birth of gay liberation and modern identity politics; the anti-Communist trajectory of the '68ers in the Eastern bloc; and the ideals and self-criticism of thinkers in America and in France who lived through these events and debated their meaning.
Praised for both "sheer intellectual high-spiritedness" ( Houston Chronicle ) and "the same sensitivity to the moral needs of the participants, and the same lucid evaluative balance, as Edmund Wilson's accounts of earlier periods" (philosopher Richard Rorty), A Tale of Two Utopias firmly establishes Berman as "one of America's leading social critics" ( New Leader ) and "one of our most gifted essayists" ( Boston Globe ).
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
4 people are currently reading
347 people want to read
About the author
Paul Berman
76 books62 followersPaul Lawrence Berman is an American author and journalist who writes on politics and literature. His articles have been published in The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review and Slate, and he is the author of several books, including A Tale of Two Utopias and Terror and Liberalism.
Berman received his undergraduate education from Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1971 with a BA and MA in American history. He has reported on Nicaragua's civil wars, Mexico's elections, and the Czech Republic's Velvet Revolution. Currently he is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, a professor of journalism and distinguished writer in residence at New York University, and a member of the editorial board of Dissent. Berman's influence has seen him described as a 'Philosopher King' of the liberal hawks."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Berman
"Paul Berman is a writer on politics and literature whose articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, the New Republic (where he is a contributing editor), the New Yorker, Slate, the Village Voice, Dissent, and various other American, European and Latin American journals. He has reported at length from Europe and Latin America. He has written or edited eight books, including, most recently, Power and the Idealists: Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer and Its Aftermath, with a new preface by Richard Holbrooke for the 2007 paperback edition; Carl Sandburg: Selected Poems, edited with an introduction, published in 2006 by the American Poets Project of the Library of America; and Terror and Liberalism, a New York Times best-seller in 2003. His writings have been translated into fifteen languages. Berman received a B.A. and M.A. in American History from Columbia University and has been awarded a MacArthur, a Guggenheim, the Bosch Berlin Prize, a fellowship at the New York Public Library’s Center for Writers & Scholars, and other honors.
Berman received his undergraduate education from Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1971 with a BA and MA in American history. He has reported on Nicaragua's civil wars, Mexico's elections, and the Czech Republic's Velvet Revolution. Currently he is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, a professor of journalism and distinguished writer in residence at New York University, and a member of the editorial board of Dissent. Berman's influence has seen him described as a 'Philosopher King' of the liberal hawks."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Berman
"Paul Berman is a writer on politics and literature whose articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, the New Republic (where he is a contributing editor), the New Yorker, Slate, the Village Voice, Dissent, and various other American, European and Latin American journals. He has reported at length from Europe and Latin America. He has written or edited eight books, including, most recently, Power and the Idealists: Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer and Its Aftermath, with a new preface by Richard Holbrooke for the 2007 paperback edition; Carl Sandburg: Selected Poems, edited with an introduction, published in 2006 by the American Poets Project of the Library of America; and Terror and Liberalism, a New York Times best-seller in 2003. His writings have been translated into fifteen languages. Berman received a B.A. and M.A. in American History from Columbia University and has been awarded a MacArthur, a Guggenheim, the Bosch Berlin Prize, a fellowship at the New York Public Library’s Center for Writers & Scholars, and other honors.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 15, 2009
As this was not my intended library selection, but merely sat on the same shelf as the one on which I was supposed to find my chosen book, I had no idea what I was getting into. After finishing page 339, I still have no idea what I’m supposed to be reading!
Not that this is uninteresting or poorly written. To the contrary it’s quite engaging and the prose flows smoothly (well, he does spastically race around from one reference to another, but it’s mostly legible). What I don’t understand is the overall intent. As this promises a “tale” about two “utopias,” the first part seems logical as a hyperactive overview – covering the origins and ultimate demise - of the sundry groups, figures, and ideas that culminated with the dynamic global happenings circa 1968. Good start. Then we come upon what I assume to be his “two utopias” – the incongruous chapters about the “Gay Awakening” within the US and the Czech Velvet Revolution through the lens of Vaclav Havel with cameos by Frank Zappa and Shirley Temple. Huh??? I assumed the “Goodship Lollipop” might somehow relate to the gay thing, but no.
I stuck with it (as mentioned, interesting stories in and of themselves) with the assumption that the concluding chapter would serve to reweave such disparate things. Hardly. The conclusion now takes us, among other random things, to a dissertation about the parallel, yet contrasting theories proffered by a French philosopher and a dude working for the RAND corp. under the Reagan and Bush administrations. The ultimate goal I suppose is to articulate prophecies about “the end of history” and propose a third Hegelian reading (that is, adding “Yankee Hegelian” to the already common “Right” and “Left” Hegelian political readings). I dunno. Are these early 90’s theories the “Two Utopias”?
So no conclusive weaving as far as I can tell. This had all the consistency of adjacent SNL skits (including the inevitable 8 minute commercial break between). I was hoping it was more akin to the film Mystery Train or Crash where all this stuff comes together somehow. Perhaps I’m stupid and the indubitable logic flew right past me. Wouldn’t be the first time. After all, I blindly assumed that the utilization of THREE libraries in a major Northeastern city would eventually yield at least one book on my now dog-eared list of 27 relatively mainstream titles. Silly me…
Not that this is uninteresting or poorly written. To the contrary it’s quite engaging and the prose flows smoothly (well, he does spastically race around from one reference to another, but it’s mostly legible). What I don’t understand is the overall intent. As this promises a “tale” about two “utopias,” the first part seems logical as a hyperactive overview – covering the origins and ultimate demise - of the sundry groups, figures, and ideas that culminated with the dynamic global happenings circa 1968. Good start. Then we come upon what I assume to be his “two utopias” – the incongruous chapters about the “Gay Awakening” within the US and the Czech Velvet Revolution through the lens of Vaclav Havel with cameos by Frank Zappa and Shirley Temple. Huh??? I assumed the “Goodship Lollipop” might somehow relate to the gay thing, but no.
I stuck with it (as mentioned, interesting stories in and of themselves) with the assumption that the concluding chapter would serve to reweave such disparate things. Hardly. The conclusion now takes us, among other random things, to a dissertation about the parallel, yet contrasting theories proffered by a French philosopher and a dude working for the RAND corp. under the Reagan and Bush administrations. The ultimate goal I suppose is to articulate prophecies about “the end of history” and propose a third Hegelian reading (that is, adding “Yankee Hegelian” to the already common “Right” and “Left” Hegelian political readings). I dunno. Are these early 90’s theories the “Two Utopias”?
So no conclusive weaving as far as I can tell. This had all the consistency of adjacent SNL skits (including the inevitable 8 minute commercial break between). I was hoping it was more akin to the film Mystery Train or Crash where all this stuff comes together somehow. Perhaps I’m stupid and the indubitable logic flew right past me. Wouldn’t be the first time. After all, I blindly assumed that the utilization of THREE libraries in a major Northeastern city would eventually yield at least one book on my now dog-eared list of 27 relatively mainstream titles. Silly me…
October 11, 2017
Key Points (Regarding 68):
- Key effect of 68 revolt was "an undertow of analysis and self-criticism among the rebels themselves" (14), one which led to a global turn towards liberal democracy, in 1989-1994.
- 68 was a generational conflict, manifested as a political one. "The younger people were eager for risks, the elders, not." (28)
- Socialism to the sixties radicals was seen to offer a path to a fairer, direct-democracy based system. Over time, the democratic aspects of the revolt were gradually replaced by leftist dogma. "The protests and merry carnivals degenerated into guerrilla mayhem and Dostoyevskian persecutions, and the spectre of left-wing dictatorship arose, and instead of freedom there was havoc." (63)
- The emergence of feminism, gay liberation and attacks against Jewish people finally allowed the ultra-left to be criticised by other progressives, hastening the collapse of their movements. "The anti-sexist criticisms that seemed quite narrow and peculiar when first raised turned out to have ever-widening implications, until the New Left as a whole was under attack." (118)
- Key effect of 68 revolt was "an undertow of analysis and self-criticism among the rebels themselves" (14), one which led to a global turn towards liberal democracy, in 1989-1994.
- 68 was a generational conflict, manifested as a political one. "The younger people were eager for risks, the elders, not." (28)
- Socialism to the sixties radicals was seen to offer a path to a fairer, direct-democracy based system. Over time, the democratic aspects of the revolt were gradually replaced by leftist dogma. "The protests and merry carnivals degenerated into guerrilla mayhem and Dostoyevskian persecutions, and the spectre of left-wing dictatorship arose, and instead of freedom there was havoc." (63)
- The emergence of feminism, gay liberation and attacks against Jewish people finally allowed the ultra-left to be criticised by other progressives, hastening the collapse of their movements. "The anti-sexist criticisms that seemed quite narrow and peculiar when first raised turned out to have ever-widening implications, until the New Left as a whole was under attack." (118)
June 13, 2021
Good, but mot nearly as good as Power and the Idealist.
December 31, 2021
Last chapter has one of the better treatments of Fukuyama that I've read.
February 20, 2022
A good book, but too long given its essayistic form (88,000 words en toto).
Berman has something interesting things to say.
The chapters I liked most were 'The Moral History of the Baby Boom Generation' (27,000 words) and 'A Backward Glance at the End of History' (22,000 words).
Berman has something interesting things to say.
The chapters I liked most were 'The Moral History of the Baby Boom Generation' (27,000 words) and 'A Backward Glance at the End of History' (22,000 words).
May 8, 2019
I’m on board with Berman’s left conservative outlook, which is awake to the shortcomings of both capitalism and socialism, and informed by extensive historical study and lived experience. This survey and comparison of the pivotal movements of 1968-69 and 1989-91 yields many insights. And the history told here is thrilling and often inspiring. Of course I have a few bones to pick. Begin with the framework of “four revolutions” presented in the first essay. Revolution #1 is the whole spectrum of political, sexual, racial and ecological ferment in Western nations at that time, plus all of the generationally specific cultural change of that period (rock, drug use, self-presentation etc.). Revolution #2 is “an uprising in the zone of the spirit” affirming a general right to self-determination. Revolution #3 is the global anti-imperialist struggle, and Revolution #4 was the struggle to ameliorate state tyranny in the Soviet bloc countries, most notably Prague Spring in 1968. But #1 is too broad to be taken as one thing. And #2 is a phenomenon that emerged from the many currents of #1, and took many different forms. Reifying this spiritual uprising seems to me a peculiarly Hegelian move, which is odd, considering that Berman does a smooth takedown of the major strains (Marxist and conservative) of post-Hegelian thought in the last chapter. The “two utopias” of the title seem to be Communism on the one hand, and either the millenarian vision of the United States (which, again, takes so many different forms from William Bradford to Henry Ford to Abbie Hoffman to Ronald Reagan that it cannot be said to cohere, in spite of some continuities) or the globalized liberal vision of the “End Of History” which Francis Fukuyama and others wrote about following 1989. Berman’s conclusion is solidly anti-progressivist (or anti-Whig, which is the same thing)—totalizing attempts to install regimes of human perfection inevitably yield totalitarian results. Yeah.
Ironically, in the discussion of “the gay awakening” that constitutes the second of the four long essays in the book, Berman, writing in 1996, is not quite bien pensant by the standards of two decades later. He’s pretty snarky about the drag queens who were in the vanguard of the Stonewall rebellion. My guess is that if he were to revisit this story now, the mainstreaming of trans-acceptance would require some revision. Gay s/m culture gets the same sneering regard. Evidently all of these folks, outliers in the uprising of spirit towards which Berman seems to bear some sentimental allegiance, are just too far out for the author's comfort.
Ironically, in the discussion of “the gay awakening” that constitutes the second of the four long essays in the book, Berman, writing in 1996, is not quite bien pensant by the standards of two decades later. He’s pretty snarky about the drag queens who were in the vanguard of the Stonewall rebellion. My guess is that if he were to revisit this story now, the mainstreaming of trans-acceptance would require some revision. Gay s/m culture gets the same sneering regard. Evidently all of these folks, outliers in the uprising of spirit towards which Berman seems to bear some sentimental allegiance, are just too far out for the author's comfort.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 17, 2011
I really like Berman; he's smart about things that I like, like politics and culture, and has all those resources that a lifetime pursuing this stuff allows you. He's also a surprisingly lively, self-aware writer, and reading him is at once a pleasure and a challenge: he writes densely, and even though I've been getting better at this lately, Berman remains a writer I can't read while listening to hip hop. Making sense of his words and his argument requires too much attention.
That said, I don't think this is Berman's best book; it might be wrong to even think of it as a book instead of a collection of essays. And some of those essays are less essential than others-- the long opening of the book, which develops the genealogy of the 1960s student left, might be material that's been too often covered elsewhere to be entirely successful here. Berman has some new ideas, it's true, and I like his global focus, to the degree that he develops it. But he still needs to hit the big marks everyone else hits, and it kind of hamstrings him a little. The material in the movements that grow out of this, like the Gay Rights movement, is pretty amazing stuff-- self-aware again, but also attuned to an evolving situation instead of a settled one, and this seems to give Berman the leeway to ask interesting questions and pursue some striking divergences. The chapter on the Czech republic and, more broadly, the collapse of the Soviet Union, is amazing, and also wonderfully idiosyncratic-- it most strongly feels like it belongs to a different book, or would best benefit by being read alone. The last section is a long treatment of Fukuyama and another political thinker which to me seems odd from a distance (the book was first pubbed in '96 or so).
So, a kind of mixed work-- parts of it are great, some some parts of it are superfluous, either to this book or overall.
That said, I don't think this is Berman's best book; it might be wrong to even think of it as a book instead of a collection of essays. And some of those essays are less essential than others-- the long opening of the book, which develops the genealogy of the 1960s student left, might be material that's been too often covered elsewhere to be entirely successful here. Berman has some new ideas, it's true, and I like his global focus, to the degree that he develops it. But he still needs to hit the big marks everyone else hits, and it kind of hamstrings him a little. The material in the movements that grow out of this, like the Gay Rights movement, is pretty amazing stuff-- self-aware again, but also attuned to an evolving situation instead of a settled one, and this seems to give Berman the leeway to ask interesting questions and pursue some striking divergences. The chapter on the Czech republic and, more broadly, the collapse of the Soviet Union, is amazing, and also wonderfully idiosyncratic-- it most strongly feels like it belongs to a different book, or would best benefit by being read alone. The last section is a long treatment of Fukuyama and another political thinker which to me seems odd from a distance (the book was first pubbed in '96 or so).
So, a kind of mixed work-- parts of it are great, some some parts of it are superfluous, either to this book or overall.
Read
January 24, 2008I've read quite a bit on the 1960s movements, but the chapter "Havel and Zappa", on the rebellion in the Czech Republic and its close connection to theatre and music subcultures, drew me in. Having lived in the C.R. for several years, hearing the details of how rock music inspired the intellectual leaders of the Prague Spring, future president Vaclav Havel especially. Hard to imagine a playwright becoming president in the US. It was also interesting to see how these young humanists situated themselves between the capitalist West and the Communist state repression at home, resulting in a "socialism with a human face" that has been painstakingly forgotten by the champions of newly emerging democracies. The last chapter is the most academic and deals with the lineage of the End of History notion, surveying left/right intellectual debates of the Cold War in light of the collapse of communism in the 90s. Perhaps most interesting here is the intellectual history regarding Andre Glucksman and Alexandre Kojeve, two generations of Marxists and their contributions to politics and philosophy. The story and impact these fellows (and compatriots like Sartre, Foucault, Derrida) had on French (and world) ideas is hard to imagine from an American perspective, where sophisticated left ideas are all but absent in the culture, and especially so in the corridors of power. An intersting read that gives some theoretical muscle to standard accounts of the 60s movements.
August 17, 2022
The upheavals (note the plural) of 1968 are shown to be diverse, complicated, and messier than those who try to recreate them think. I remember, even though I was just a kid. People thought the world was coming to an end, but there were these wild possibilities . . . For a while we felt free. Sometimes the book gets funny, and is more fun when discussing radical hijinks than the writings of philosophers and the End of History. Where have all the philosophers gone? Now a lot of fed up people want to hand the world over to the thugs, which is not funny. Maybe some serious hijinks are in order . . .
November 25, 2015
Well, I dunno. A challenging book; not stylistically (it's actually a quick, compelling, easy read), but Berman"s arguments and perspective are not comfortable reading.
There's some good material and I feel the better for having engaged with it, but parts left me distinctly unimpressed. At times fascinating and persuasive, but at other times simplistic and intellectually sloppy; the final section on Fukuyama being a case in point.
There's value in here, but Berman's more polemical than thoughtful.
There's some good material and I feel the better for having engaged with it, but parts left me distinctly unimpressed. At times fascinating and persuasive, but at other times simplistic and intellectually sloppy; the final section on Fukuyama being a case in point.
There's value in here, but Berman's more polemical than thoughtful.
January 31, 2016
The mind reels when imagining how the events recounted in this political history might have turned out without America. It is as a bastion of common sense that we have saved many others from ruin. I wonder how long we will stand against the tide of false salvation, particularly when we seem to have walked right into such a political storm ourselves.
started-but-stalled-for-now
September 9, 2008One of several books I've started and set aside temporarily while giving more attention to other books.
Paul Berman's book Terror and Liberalism is one of the best books I've read in my life. So far A Tale of Two Utopias is looking to be pretty good as well.
Paul Berman's book Terror and Liberalism is one of the best books I've read in my life. So far A Tale of Two Utopias is looking to be pretty good as well.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews