Dartington Hall was a social experiment of kaleidoscopic vitality, set up in Devon in 1925 by a fabulously wealthy American heiress, Dorothy Elmhirst (nee Whitney), and her Yorkshire-born husband, Leonard. It quickly achieved international fame with its progressive school, craft production and wide-ranging artistic endeavours. Dartington was a residential community of students, teachers, farmers, artists and craftsmen committed to revivifying life in the countryside. It was also a socio-cultural laboratory, where many of the most brilliant interwar minds came to test out their ideas about art, society, spirituality and rural regeneration. To this day, Dartington Hall remains a symbol of countercultural experimentation and a centre for arts, ecology and social justice. Practical Utopia presents a compelling portrait of a group of people trying to live out their ideals, set within an international framework, and demonstrates Dartington's tangled affinities with other unity-seeking projects across Britain and in India and America.
By:
Anna Neima Imprint: Cambridge University Press Country of Publication: United Kingdom Edition: New edition Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 158mm,
Spine: 20mm
Weight: 630g ISBN:9781316517970 ISBN 10: 1316517977 Series:Modern British Histories Pages: 340 Publication Date:28 April 2022 Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format:Hardback Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: An experiment in the art of living; 1. Overview; 2. Social and spiritual questing; 3. Education for change; 4. Creativity for all; 5. Regenerating rural life; Conclusion: The afterlife of a utopia.
Anna Neima completed her doctorate in history at the University of Cambridge and is now a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow. Her first book, The Utopians (2021), tells the story of six communities started around the globe after the First World War.