Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"
Inventions of Nemesis is undoubtedly an extremely interesting book."
---Seamus Flaherty, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books"Readers of all stripes will appreciate Mao's consistent attention to context and to the parallels among old favorites and more recent works. This is a valuable addition to the conversation on Utopias." * Choice Reviews *
"A brilliant, erudite, and transformative interpretation of utopia as an exercise in justice. . . . Its arguments will influence scholars working in utopian studies, early modern and modern literatures, global justice theories, and migration studies."
---Greg Forter, Modernism/modernity"Douglas Mao’s erudite, keen-eyed, and deeply rewarding volume mounts a subtle polemic against how the discipline understands itself, and it does so by adding to its options for understanding what ethics is."
---Bruce Robbins, Novel"Attentive to both the promises and the pitfalls of utopian thinking, [Mao’s] argument is that utopian thought has always focused on achieving justice. . . . He puts utopian fiction writers into revealing dialogue with an equally impressive range of political philosophers."
---Duncan Bell, New Statesman"Mao proffers that utopian thinking is driven not by an ideal of perfection, but rather by indignation at injustices in the world. Mao’s thesis that both utopian thinking and the construction of utopias are a response to injustice offers a fruitful alternative starting point for a discussion between law and utopia."
---Ruth Houghton, International Journal of Law in Context"
Inventions of Nemesis engages with an impressive (yet coherent) range of texts in literature, criticism, philosophy, political science, and economics. . . . It is not the least of this book’s many virtues that it ends by opening out into new lines of inquiry while demonstrating the urgency that continues to drive utopian thinking."
---Stephen Arata, Modern Language Quarterly
