Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
doi 10.1215/0961754X-2005-009 12:2 © 2006 by Duke University Press Arthur Mitzman, Prometheus Revisited: The Quest for Global Justice in the Twentyfirst Century (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), 319 pp. In this important book, Mitzman draws on alternate features of the European past to support a future vision of democratic societies, social justice, the reasonable and humane use of technology, and the protection of the planetâs resources. Prometheus has been taken as the patron saint of technological domination of nature, capitalist achievement and globalization, and rampant individualism. Mitzman shows that there is another Prometheus, associated with the Romantic tradition and found in Shelleyâs 1818â19 poem Prometheus Unbound. Here Prometheus is a resister of tyranny and denouncer of social injustice; Shelley makes him a symbol of harmony between humankind and nature, between reason and mystical feeling, through his marriage to Asia. The Prometheus born of the revolutions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had several faces. Mitzman traces them in modern nationalism, socialism, and consumer capitalism. If the first two began as reactions to the selfish individualism of capitalism, they failed to defeat it and succumbed, themselves, to the cult of power. Consumer capitalism, claiming to be a
Common Knowledge – Duke University Press
Published: Apr 1, 2006
Read and print from thousands of top scholarly journals.
Already have an account? Log in
Bookmark this article. You can see your Bookmarks on your DeepDyve Library.
To save an article, log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.
Copy and paste the desired citation format or use the link below to download a file formatted for EndNote
Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
All DeepDyve websites use cookies to improve your online experience. They were placed on your computer when you launched this website. You can change your cookie settings through your browser.