Annal:1983 National Book Award for History
From AwardAnnals
Results of the National Book Award in the year 1983. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- <–1982
- National Book Award
- –end–
Utopian Thought in the Western World
- 1983 NBA–History winner
- Score: 10.33
This masterly study has a grand sweep. It ranges over centuries, with a long look backward over several millennia. Yet the history it unfolds is primarily the story of individuals: thinkers and dreamers who envisaged an ideal social order and described it persuasively, leaving a mark on their own and later times.
The roster of utopians includes men of all stripes in different countries and eras—figures as disparate as More and Fourier, the Marquis de Sade and Edward Bellamy, Rousseau and Marx. Fascinating character studies of the major figures are among the delights of the book.
Utopian writings run the gamut from fictional narratives to theoretical treatises, from political manifestos to constitutions for a new society. The Manuels have structured five centuries of utopian invention by identifying successive constellations, groups of thinkers joined by common social and moral concerns. Within this framework they analyze individual writings, in the context of the author’s life and of the socio-economic, religious, and political exigencies of his time. Concentrating on innovative…
Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, & the Great Depression
- 1983 NBA–History winner
- Score: 10.33
