Utopian Vistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American Counterculture

by Lois Palken Rudnick

Overview

Mabel Dodge Luhan, hostess and visionary, made Taos, New Mexico, a center for artists and utopians when she moved there in 1917 and began inviting friends to visit her. Now available in paperback, Utopian Vistas is a chronicle of the house Luhan built in Taos and the poets, painters, photographers, film-makers, writers, educators, and visionaries whose lives and works were affected by the house and its environs. Lois Rudnick weaves a complex tapestry depicting American countercultures in New Mexico from the 1920s to the 1990s.

"Should be required reading for art historians,film historians, ex-Beats and hippies, their children and grandchildren, and anyone interested in the possibility of making an imperfect America perfect at last."—Karal Ann Marling

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826319265
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	02/01/1998
Pages:	415
Product dimensions:	6.13(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Lois Palken Rudnick has written or edited several books on Mabel Dodge Luhan. She is professor of English and American Studies and director of the American Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Editorial Reviews

. . . Rudnicks highly readable history of the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico explores the countercultural appeal of Taos . . .

." . . Rudnick's highly readable history of the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico explores the countercultural appeal of Taos . . ."

From the Publisher

Focusing on the people who occupied the house of Mabel Dodge Luhan in Taos, New Mexico, Rudnick follows up her biography of Luhan (Mable Dodge Luhan, Univ. of New Mexico, 1987) with a flawed study of Luhan's impact on America's 20th-century counterculture movement, particularly in and around Taos. Because she catalogs the offbeat writers, painters, and others who visited Luhan, recording their impressions of her instead of addressing Luhan herself, Rudnick fails to provide a clear understanding of her role in the movement. The strongest features of this work are the numerous halftones and illustrations, which portray life in Taos, and the discussion of actor and director Dennis Hopper, who occupied the house in the 1960s. Hopper's role in America's counterculture is clearly delineated. For informed lay readers and specialists in the area.Richard P. Hedlund, Ashland Community Coll., Ky.

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