Victor Considerant and the Rise and Fall of French Romantic Socialism

"Jonathan Beecher's study is both a story of one of the most engaging figures among the French romantic intellectuals of the 1840s and a chronicle of early French socialism. Victor Considerant (1808-1893), a follower of the great utopian thinker Charles Fourier, played an important role in the creation of a Fourierist movement and the development of socialist journalism. In the process of conveying a rich understanding of Considerant's life, Beecher traces the rise and fall of French romantic socialism and demonstrates how the utopian visions of thinkers such as Fourier came to inspire a generation of young radicals and reformers not only in France but also in Dostoyevsky's Russia and in the America of Horace Greeley and Margaret Fuller.". "In presenting the life, times, and writings of this significant historical figure, Beecher paints a vivid portrait of an important period of European intellectual history and gives his readers insight into the experience of a generation of thinkers and political activists. This comprehensive history will become the definitive work on Victor Considerant and - along with Beecher's classic study of Fourier - a major contribution to the history of French socialism in the nineteenth century."--BOOK JACKET.