The attempt by European Fourierists to create a community near Dallas, Texas, in the mid-1850s, was marred from the start by a fundamental disagreement between Considerant and his followers. By investing in Texas real estate, he hoped to create a « champ d’asile » open to various kinds of social experimentation. They wanted to embark as rapidly as possible on the creation of a Fourierist association. The community’s failure was due to many causes, but the clash between Considerant’s vision and that of his followers was the crucial and underlying cause both of Reunion’s uniqueness and of its failure.
Jonathan Beecher est professeur d’histoire à l’Université de Californie à Santa Cruz (UCSC). Il est notamment l’auteur de Fourier. Le Visionnaire et son monde (Fayard, 1993) et de Victor Considerant and the Rise and Fall of French Romantic Socialism (Univ. of California Press, 2001, traduction en 2012 aux Presses du Réel sous le titre Victor Considerant, grandeur et décadence du socialisme romantique français) ; il habite une cabane de bois dans un forêt de séquoias pas loin du Pacifique, et il participe depuis longtemps aux activités de l’Association d’études fouriéristes.
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