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External Websites
- National Park Service - Utopias in America
- University of Central Florida Pressbooks - Utopia
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Plato on Utopia
- The Guardian - Utopias, past and present: why Thomas More remains astonishingly radical
- New Georgia Encyclopedia - Utopians
- BBC Culture - How Utopia shaped the world
- The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction - Utopias
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External Websites
- National Park Service - Utopias in America
- University of Central Florida Pressbooks - Utopia
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Plato on Utopia
- The Guardian - Utopias, past and present: why Thomas More remains astonishingly radical
- New Georgia Encyclopedia - Utopians
- BBC Culture - How Utopia shaped the world
- The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction - Utopias
Britannica Websites
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
- utopia - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
- utopia - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
Also known as: utopian community
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Article History
Hans Holbein the Younger:
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- Key People:
- Thomas More
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- science fiction
- state
- utopian poetry
- utopian socialism
- sociocracy
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utopia, an ideal commonwealth whose inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions. Hence utopian and utopianism are words used to denote visionary reform that tends to be impossibly idealistic.
Literary utopias
More’s Utopia
The word first occurred in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, published in Latin as Libellus…de optimo reipublicae statu, deque nova insula Utopia (1516; “Concerning the highest state of the republic and the new island Utopia”); it was compounded by More from the Greek words for “not” (ou) and “place” (topos) and thus meant “nowhere.” During his embassy to Flanders in 1515, More wrote Book II of Utopia, describing a pagan and communist city-state in which the institutions and policies were entirely governed by reason. The order and dignity of such a state was intended to provide a notable contrast with the unreasonable polity of Christian Europe, divided by self-interest and greed for power and riches, which More then described in Book I, written in England in 1516. The description of Utopia is put in the mouth of a mysterious traveler, Raphael Hythloday, in support of his argument that communism is the only cure against egoism in private and public life. More, in the dialogue, speaks in favour of mitigation of evil rather than cure, human nature being fallible. The reader is thus left guessing as to which parts of the brilliant jeu d’esprit are seriously intended and which are mere paradox.
Speculative and practical utopias
Written utopias may be speculative, practical, or satirical. Utopias are far older than their name. Plato’s Republic was the model of many, from More to H.G. Wells. A utopian island occurs in the Hiera anagraphe (“Sacred Inscription”) of Euhemerus (flourished c. 300 bce), and Plutarch (46–after 119 ce), in his life of Lycurgus, describes a utopian Sparta. The legend of Atlantis inspired many utopian myths, but explorations in the 15th century permitted more realistic settings, and More himself associated Utopia with Amerigo Vespucci. Other utopias that were similar to More’s in humanist themes were the I mondi (1552) of Antonio Francesco Doni and La città felice (1553) of Francesco Patrizi. An early practical utopia was the comprehensive La città del sole (c. 1602; “The City of the Sun”) of Tommaso Campanella. Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627) was practical in its scientific program but speculative concerning philosophy and religion. Christian utopian commonwealths were described in Antangil (1616) by “I.D.M.,” Christianopolis (1619) by Johann Valentin Andreae, and Novae Solymae libri sex (1648) by Samuel Gott. Puritanism produced many literary utopias, both religious and secular, notably The Law of Freedom… (1652), in which Gerrard Winstanley advocated the principles of the Diggers. The Common-Wealth of Oceana (1656) by James Harrington argued for the distribution of land as the condition of popular independence.
In France such works as Gabriel de Foigny’s Terre australe connue (1676) preached liberty. François Fénelon’s Télémaque (1699) contained utopian episodes extolling the simple life. L’An 2440 by Louis-Sébastien Mercier (1770; Eng. trans., 1772) anticipated Revolutionary doctrines. G.A. Ellis’s New Britain (1820) and Étienne Cabet’s Voyage en Icarie (1840) were related to experimental communities in the United States that revealed the limitations of purely economic planning. Consequently, Bulwer-Lytton, in The Coming Race (1871), invented an essence that eliminated economics altogether, and William Morris demonstrated his contempt for economics in News from Nowhere (1890). Two influential utopias, however, had an economic basis: Looking Backward, 2000–1887 (1888) by Edward Bellamy and Freiland (1890; A Visit to Freeland…) by Theodor Herzka. H.G. Wells, in A Modern Utopia (1905), returned to speculation.
