The Obsolete Necessity

The Obsolete Necessity expanded the canon of American utopias during their print-culture Golden Era from 40 to more than 160 works. What were the natures and impacts of these fictions? Were they accurate indices to the desires and fears of Americans? Roemer uses a combination biographical research, innovative statistical content analyses, and cultural/historical contextualizations to address these questions. He demonstrates how the utopists’ concepts of time, space, and the potential to transform individuals shaped their visions of economies, religion, cities, and women, as well as daily life. Throughout, Roemer emphasizes tense combinations of old and new, and hopes and fears. The new Introduction defines how the utopias are relevant/irrelevant today, incorporates insights from Lyman Tower Sargents’s further expansion of the canon, articulates a theory of culture, and concludes with speculations about the creation of “influential” scholarship.