Principle of Hope, 3-vol. set

This three-volume text is a critical history of the utopian vision and an exploration of the possible reality of utopia. Even as the world has rejected the doctrine on which Bloch sought to base his utopia, his work still challenges us to think more insightfully about our own visions of a better world. Volume one lays the foundations of the philosophy of process and introduces the idea of the "not-yet-conscious" - the anticipatory element that Bloch sees as central to human thought.

It also contains an account of the aesthetic interpretations of utopian "wishful images" in fairy tales, popular fiction, travel, theatre, dance and the cinema. Volume two presents "the outlines of a better world." It examines the utopian systems that progressive thinkers have developed in the fields of medicine, painting, opera, poetry, and ultimately, philosophy. It is an account of utopian thought from the Greeks to the present.

Volume three offers a prescription for ways in which humans can reach their proper "homeland," where social justice is coupled with an openness to change and to the future.