Without Sin chronicles the rise and fall of nineteenth-century America's most succesful experiment in Utopian living: New York's Oneida Community (1848-1880). Founded by the charismatic Christian Perfectioniost John Humphrey Noyes, this remarkable society flourished for more than thirty years as a unique world where property was shared, men and women were equals, sex was free and open, work was to be joyous, and pleasure was felt to be the very business that God set Adam and Eve about. Without SinAcknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Without Sin
Notes on Sources
Index
First-class American history—sustained, beautifully informed, ironic in just the right places
—Alfred Kazin
An exceptionally fine work of popular history . . . Klaw tells the story of this remarkable social experiment in readable, engaging prose
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Fascinating . . . a sympathetic, detailed, and wonderfully well-told account.
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
A vivid portrait of a truly American moment and community
—The Wall Street Journal
We beign to suspect that the real life and identity of America lies in its unique—and at time maddeningly independent—search for God and personal salvation and not in its wars and generals and presidents. Spencer Klaw's brilliant and poetic book illuminates magnificently one uch experiement. . . . An exhilirating and disturbing portrait on the fault-line of the American conscience.
—Ken Burns
Spencer Klaw has written for
Esquire,
Harper's,
American Heritage, and
The New York Times Magazine, among other magalc)