From the collective Atarashiki-mura (New Village) Movement initiated by Mushakoji Saneatsu, through many other individual semi-agricultural life practices of Japanese writers and artists, the book traces the emergence of a shared agricultural fundamentalism that informed and evolved into active political interventions in response to the social crisis caused by the Great Depression. The book also explores the enduring influence of Ando Shoeki, the great utopian thinker of the 18th century, on modern Japanese radical thought.

​Ou Ning combines original field investigation with a close reading of the historical archives to construct a narrative spanning periods and geographies that is always attentive to specific details. The book takes the reader to the historical scene and asks them to consider its relevance to the even now more urgent questions of ways of living and planetary thinking. Among the many histories of utopian thought and experiments, this is a unique Asian version, a re-thinking of social and environmental possibilities through geographical, political, and cultural differences.