This remarkable book ,written soon after the French revolution,has traditionable been considered one of the founding documents in the history of socialism.It introduces the best-known and most extraordinary utopia written in the last two centuries.Charles Fouridr was among the first to formulate a right to a minimum
standard of life.His radical approach involved a systematic critique of work,marriage and patriarchy ,toghter with a parallel right to a sexual minimum.He
also proposed a comprehensive altermative to the Christian religion.Finally,though the medium of a bizarre and extraordinary cosmology,Fourier argued that the poor state of the plant is the result of the evil practices of civilisation.Translated into English for the first time since1857,this classic text will be of particular interest to students and scholars of the history of sexuality and feminism,political thought and socialism.
GARETH STEDMAN JONES，is Reader in the History of Social Thought in the University of Cambridge,and a Fellow of Kings College,

Introduction
Principal events in Fourier`s life
A brief note on further reading
Traslator`s introduction The Theory of the Four Movements and of the General
Destinies
1808 Introduction
Preliminary discourse
Plan
First part: Exposition of some branches of the general destinies
General ideas about the destinies
Phases and p[eriods of the social order in the third planet namely the earth
Epilogue:On the proximity of the social metamorphosis
Second part: Description of the various branches of the private or domestic destinies
First account:On the progressive household of the seventh period,and on the discontents
of the secxes in the incoherent household
Second acount:On the splendour of the combined order
On the abandonment of moral philosophy
Third part:Confirmation derived from the inadequacy of the inadequacy of the inexact sciences to deal with all the civilised mechanism presents
First demonstration:Freemasonry and its still unknown properties
Second demonstration:The insular monopoly and its still unknown properties
Interlude:System of development of Civilisation
Third demonstration:Commercial licence:Its known vices and its unknown dangers
Epilogue:On the social chaos of the globe
Omitted chapter
Note A
Advice to the civilised
1818 Introduction
Index