Home from the Dark Side of Utopia (2016) by Clifton Ross [Dr.Soc

Clifton Ross, "Home from the Dark Side of Utopia: A Journey Through American Revolutions"
ISBN: 184935250X | 2016 | MOBI, EPUB | 384 pages | 1.5 MB

A riveting personal memoir that shares hard-earned political insights. Ross's journey begins on Air Force bases and in small, conservative towns in the American South. We follow his political and spiritual development from an Anabaptist peace community in the 1970s, through various forms of radical and countercultural politics, to the present-day failures of "revolutions" throughout Latin America, with a particular focus on the Bolivarian process in Venezuela. The book charts a path through good intentions, projects gone awry, and the shadow side of utopian dreams—ultimately locating hope in the social movements of ordinary people who resist the imposition of states and other actors that claim to represent them.

Clifton Ross is a translator, filmmaker, and writer. He is co-editor, with Marcy Rein, of Until the Rulers Obey: Voices from Latin American Social Movements. Ross's book of poetry, Translations from Silence, received PEN Oakland's 2010 Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence