The Story of Nowhere was written and published in 2020 by Daniel McCarthy of Cleveland, Ohio. The book is a general and tangible introduction to a much larger project, which is primarily delivered in the form of The Story of Nowhere Podcast. While the meat of this project is contained in this on-going podcast, the book serves as a necessary first step to understanding what the project is all about, and what it intends to do.
The project as a whole is concerned with the rise and fall of political Utopias—historical and theoretical; manipulative and well-intentioned. In the book, McCarthy explores and summarizes just a handful of such experiments in social engineering, revealing the intrinsic and fundamental flaws and fallacies hidden behind the veil of Utopian rhetoric. The reader is shown the foundational elements of Utopian thinking by way of a fast-paced historical narrative, covering Medieval Europe, the foundation of the United States, and more. Yet the point of this narrative is not merely to teach (or re-teach) the reader a litany of names and dates from the past; instead, the point is to present the reader with a new and (in the author’s opinion) useful and relevant lens through which to view history.
After showcasing some Utopian endeavors of the past and drawing attention to some dangerous Utopian tendencies active in our world right now, McCarthy argues that what animates all of these ill-fated experiments—what makes them attemptable in the first place—is the dependence of individuals on small groups of powerful people. Thus, the solution to the problem of Utopianism, which has run through all of human history, is independence. What this is, and what it implies, is the true thrust of the book and, indeed, of the entire Story of Nowhere Project.
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THE BOOK’S DESCRIPTION FROM LULU.COM:
We’ve all heard the old cliché: history repeats itself. But why is this so? What is it that drives humanity to keep making the same mistakes? Specifically, why do we continue to produce murderous regimes and oppressive states? What is the motivation—or justification—for millennia of crimes perpetrated by a plethora of ruling classes?
In this entertaining and insightful book, Daniel McCarthy tells the story of a belief. This belief was used to justify Medieval Inquisitions, the French Reign of Terror, and even eugenics in the United States. It is the belief that we can perfect ourselves and perfect our neighbors; that we can purify society itself, and that we may do so at any cost. It is the belief in Utopia.
“The Story of Nowhere” provides an introduction to this thesis by taking the reader on a journey from the mythical “Golden Ages” of the ancient past right up to the inter-connected, technological societies of the modern day. The author highlights just a handful of the myriad calamities that have resulted from the historical pursuit of Utopia. However, the book ends with a message of optimism, offering solutions to this problem of the ages; solutions that begin where all honest solutions must: with the self. This book serves as the introduction to a far more in-depth investigation into both the problems of Utopianism, and the solutions to it. This larger project takes the form of “The Story of Nowhere Podcast,” to be found at www.storyofnowhere.com.
