Historical Utopian Experiments in the Western World

A Working Guide to sources at the International Institute of Social History

This Catalogue of titles on Utopian Communities, Colonies, Communes and other Experiments in Living Together is an extract from the complete IISG catalogue (see below) and it contains approximately 4,000 records. The most important subjects are: French 19th century utopian socialism; American communist colonies; Kibbutzim; etc. It cannot claim to be complete on a broad subject like Utopian communities. Be sure to check the complete IISG catalogue if you cannot find what you are looking for.
The catalogue presented here is in itself an experiment. With it we try to gain knowledge on how to use the Internet as a tool for better ways of access to large sets of bibliographical data and as a way of making these titles available in an easy manner.

Please fill in any word (author; title; publisher; place; etc.). You can only search for an exact match. It will find 'Robert Owen' (results: 41 records), 'Owen, Robert' (results: 137 records) and 'Owen' (results: 202 records):

The basis of the IISH American collection on this subject is a collection bought in 1938 from the New York antiquarian Kramer. In 1951 a catalogue presenting this material was published in the Bulletin of the International Institute of Social History (nr.2 pg.89-122). The catalogue The American Communities (35 images) is available on this site.
The entire catalogue of the IISH can be accessed through a web interface and a telnet session.

The IISH wishes to thank Saskia Lambregts for her work on this catalogue.

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Database last updated: 22 July 1999