Overview
- Assesses how Robert Owen transformed New Lanark into a test-bed for his social philosophies
- Provides the first attempt to trace the origins of 'Owenism' from a social history perspective
- Utilises previously unpublished archival material
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Utopianism (PASU)
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About this book
This book provides an account of how, in the years 1800-1825, enlightened entrepreneur and budding reformer Robert Owen used his cotton mill village of New Lanark, Scotland, as a test-bed for a set of political intuitions which would later form the bedrock of early socialism in Britain. Drawing from previously unpublished archival sources, this study shows that New Lanark was not merely on the receiving end of Owen’s innovative brand of industrial paternalism, but also acted as a major source of inspiration for many aspects of his social system, including his desire to remodel society along communitarian lines. This book therefore reaffirms the centrality of New Lanark as the cradle of socialism in Britain, and provides a contextualised, social history of Owen’s ideas, tracing direct continuities between his early years as a paternalistic businessman, and his later career as a radical political leader. In doing so, it eschews the myth of New Lanark as a unidimensional ‘model’ village and addresses the ambiguities of Owen’s journey from paternalism to socialism.
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
Authors and affiliations
About the author
Ophélie Siméon is Associate Professor in British History at Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris, France.
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Bibliographic information
Book title: Robert Owen’s Experiment at New Lanark
Book subtitle: From Paternalism to Socialism
Authors: Ophélie Siméon
Series title: Palgrave Studies in Utopianism
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64227-7
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-64226-0Published: 27 October 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-87752-5Published: 24 August 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-64227-7Published: 16 October 2017
Series ISSN: 2946-4471
Series E-ISSN: 2946-448X
Edition number: 1
Number of pages: IX, 173
Number of illustrations: 7 b/w illustrations, 6 illustrations in colour
Topics: History of Britain and Ireland, Intellectual Studies, Social History, History of Modern Europe, Modern History