A starred review from Publishers Weekly →

I am just so happy. This is the first time I’ve gotten one of these precious little starred reviews!

Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life

Kristen R. Ghodsee. Simon & Schuster, $29.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-982190-21-7

Ghodsee (Red Valkyries), a professor of Russian and Eastern European studies at the University of Pennsylvania, offers a spirited and thought-provoking survey of “social dreaming” and the thinkers and movements that have tried to reenvision home life to promote greater harmony and happiness. Focusing particularly on utopian experiments that treated women as equals and shared property among community members, Ghodsee examines the long history of non-family groups living together, from ancient Buddhist and medieval Christian monastics to contemporary communes in Maine and Denmark; income and property sharing models proposed and practiced by John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and the Hutterite, Shaker, and Bruderhof Christian enclaves of North America; and the centralized childcare arrangements of Israeli kibbutzim. In the book’s most moving sections, Ghodsee buttresses her argument that the nuclear family has historically divided women from their own familial care networks and made them and their children more vulnerable to intimate violence with the story of how her high school English teacher took her in for a crucial period after her parents’ abusive marriage split up. Clear-eyed yet exuberant, wide-ranging yet intimate, this is an inspiring call for imagining a better future. Agent: Melissa Flashman, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (May)

2023 Reading Challenge: God and the State

Okay, so I am technically rereading this one, but the last time I read it all the way through was back in 2004, so this definitely feels new. And I am reading it for my class, but I think it still counts toward my reading challenge because I did reread the whole book. It’s scattered and bombastic, like Bakunin was scattered and bombastic, but there’s a lot to chew on in this short tract. I’m actually looking forward to my lecture tomorrow.

2023 Reading Challenge: Red Star

I wasn’t sure if I was going to include books that I am reading for my class this semester or books that I am rereading, but I so much enjoyed revisiting Bogdanov’s Red Star that I am going to count it toward my reading goals anyway. This amazing novella was written in 1908 and offers a fascinating perspective on what socialism might have looked like in the 20th century had Bolsheviks like Bogdanov prevailed. I particularly love the discussion of Martian love and marriage included in this text since Bogdanov and Alexandra Kollontai were comrades and friends.

Blurbs for Everyday Utopia: Thomas Piketty, Rebecca Traister, Ada Calhoun, Robert Waldinger, and Yanis Varoufakis

“My god, this book is what I need right now! Exhilarating, good humored, and forward looking, it’s blown open my brain. What a powerful reminder that dreaming of better worlds is not just some fantastical project, but also a very serious political one.”  
—REBECCA TRAISTER, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad

“More could be possible than we imagine—that’s the liberating and inspirational message of Kristen Ghodsee’s sweeping feminist history of society at its most creative. What a gift she’s given us with this mind-broadening investigation into how for millennia our fellow human beings have reckoned with the toughest questions of fidelity, family, and love.” 
—ADA CALHOUN, New York Times bestselling author of Why We Can't Sleep 

“Kristen Ghodsee has boldly gone where few would dare to tread. In this warm, intelligent, and lucid book, she takes us on a deep dive into how people have created better systems for living—systems that actually work. With clear-eyed views of how utopian communities can promote human thriving, she offers hope in a time when we desperately need new ways of imagining the future.”  
—ROBERT WALDINGER, Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and author of The Good Life

“Utopia is back! And it ought to be taken seriously, as history is made by the dreamers. If you want to open up new futures for our private lives, please have a look at this refreshing book. A must-read.” 
—THOMAS PIKETTY, New York Times bestselling author of A Brief History of Equality 

“Invigorating writing for a cheerless era. Having explained to us Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism, Kristen Ghodsee is back with another splendid insight: utopia can, and ought to, be an everyday thing, in every home.” 
—YANIS VAROUFAKIS, former Greek Minister of Finance and author of Talking to My Daughter About the Economy