208. Desroche, Henri. "'Heavens on Earth': Micromillenarismes et communautarisme utopique en Amérique du Nord du XVII au XIX siècle." Archives de Sociologie des Religions 4, 1957: 57-92.

A sketchy review of North American movements, some well known, others (to me) quite obscure. The brief histories and descriptions appear to be drawn from Froom (1946); several authors are mentioned with no bibliographic information. Desroche's contribution, from my point of view, is a sketchy referral of these movements to French sources, notably the socialisms of Fourier and Saint-Simon.

209. ---. "Les messianismes et la catégorie de l'échec." Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie 10, 1963: 61-84.

Millenarism is not only a category of religion but a category of failure.

210. ---. The American Shakers: From Neo-Christianity to Presocialism. Translated by John K. Savacoll. Amherst, MA: Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 1971.

Desroche has a chapter (pp. 57-87) on American millennialism in which he traces the history of the idea in sketchy fashion, finding the Shakers (perhaps) influenced by Moravians and definitely by Cevenole Protestants, Pierre Jurieu, the mechanic preachers, John Owen, the Levellers, Diggers and Ranters and Fifth Monarchy Men.

211. ---. The Sociology of Hope. Translated by Carol Martin-Sperry. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979.

Desroche doubts that imaginary representations like millenarist ideas, utopias, and ideologies are reducible to real situations, though they do determine them sometimes. Pressures define questions, while aspirations provide answers. His basic metaphor for these ideas is that of the Indian fakir's rope trick-hope is a rope with nothing to hold it up, but it stays up and supports weight. Imagination is constituted by reality, and constitutes it.

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