Reaching for Utopia is the story of six clear-eyed dreamers who seek to resurrect the Surrealism of the 1920s, and the Situationism of the 1960s, in an attempt to overthrow the deadening regime of capitalist-consumer society and replace it with a joyous way of life. Accompanying this is the assassination of a president, the secession of large sections of the country, and the collapse of the American empire. The “gang of six” sponsor a series of heart-expanding adventures, as more and more Americans join the movement. Much has changed by the end of the story, as our heroes can say, in the words of the poet Mary Oliver, that they had lived in the world, and had not just been “visiting” it. Reaching for Utopia is also a very funny book; always a plus.

Morris Berman is a poet, novelist, essayist, social critic, and cultural historian. He has written twenty-three books and nearly 200 articles, and has taught at a number of universities in Europe, North America, Chile, and Mexico. He won the Governor’s Writers Award for Washington State in 1990, and was the first recipient of the annual Rollo May Center Grant for Humanistic Studies in 1992. In 2000, The Twilight of American Culture was named a “Notable Book” by the New York Times Book Review, and in 2013 he received the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity from the Media Ecology Association. Dr. Berman lives in Mexico.