Victor Considerant and the Rise and Fall of French Romantic Socialism Capa dura - 2001

A leader of the democratic socialist left during the Second Republic, Considerant was forced into exile after the abortive insurrection of June 13, 1849. Emigrating to the United States, he eventually became an American citizen and spent most of the next two decades in Texas, where he attempted to establish utopian communities near Dallas and, later, in the hill country west of San Antonio. He returned to France in 1869, where he joined the Worker's International and supported the Paris Commune. Although he never publicly disavowed Fourier's doctrine, the unpublished writings and private correspondence of his later years show a growing disenchantment with all those aspects of Fourierism that could not, in his view, be scientifically verified.

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 andgives 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.