Main Article Content

American utopias in the 19th century: Religious versus ideological farms in the west of the United States


Antonio Sanchez-Bayon
Estrella Trincado-Aznar
Francisco J. Sastre

Abstract

This is a critical-hermeneutical and historical-comparative study on Political Economy, Economic History and Social Thought, applied to the American  utopias in the 19th century and its role in the colonisation of the United States (US) west. This review is based on a heterodox economic approach, used in  the disciplines of Religion and Economics. It gives a general view of religious and ideological utopias, as cooperative enterprises of intentional life in  farms and workshop, making a comparative analysis of efficiency and sustainability. This study attempts to explain the colonial paradox of American  utopias because the last established, with more inversion, they were the first to fall. This study shapes the development of the western territories, from  the Quaker’s Holy Experiment framework and its support for the utopias experiments in the expansion to Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.


Contribution: This review offers a descriptive and explanatory study on the colonisation of the US west, under the hermeneutical turn from heterodox  economic approaches, to deal with some current contradictions and anachronism in the mainstream view. Also, there is a systematisation of the  American utopias, divided into religious and ideological experiments, with a comparison.


Journal Identifiers


eISSN: 2072-8050
print ISSN: 0259-9422