Utopian Books

Utopia (Norton Critical Editions)

Thomas More

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A great translation of a timeless classic 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This edition of Thomas More's Utopia is expertly translated by Adams from the Latin and easy to read. Adams' footnotes are informative and often times a hilarious addition to More's work.

Taking a more modern approach to More, Adam's footnotes suggest that perhaps More does not take his perfect society literally, and expects the reader to read between the lines and see that such a society is obviously not possible. This is a theory of More's thought processes that I agree with, so I found this translation and Adam's thoughts quite welcome and agreeable.

However, there are many schools of thought on the issue as to whether More was completely serious about the suggested society in Utopia, although a knowledge of More as a person would suggest that he employed a subtle sarcasm throughout his life, and therefore it is not a stretch to suggest that Utopia was laced with this same humor and etched with ironic impossibilities that More hoped an educated person would be able to see.

Additionally, the fact that More places himself as a character in the book, and narrates through the use of a man whose name literally translated means "nonsense-peddler" leaves little doubt in my mind that to take More's Utopia at face-value is to do a disservice to More, the intellectual scholar that he was, and Utopia itself.

Editorial Review:

This edition has been revised with new annotations, including a criticism section which contains essays and selections from two modern Utopias - Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and B.F. Skinner's "Walden Two" - plus extracts from Edward Bellamy's futuristic "Looking Backward".

Plato: The Republic (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

Plato

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Total reviews: 92 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The ultimate Socratic dialogue? 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

"The Republic" is Plato's classical utopia, and perhaps one of the most controversial political texts ever written. It's so absurd that some people deny that Plato really meant it! Strange Aristotle never noticed. And yet, those who believe that "The Republic" shouldn't be taken literally probably have a point. Plato himself didn't take "The Republic" absolutely literally either.

"The Republic" describes a hierarchical caste society ruled by a militarized, collectivist elite. The elite itself is divided into different segments, the highest echelon being that of the philosopher-kings, enlightened thinkers who contemplate the heavenly world of Platonic forms, and precisely for that reason are fit to rule society as well. Below the philosopher-kings stand the Guardians, essentially the military caste. Famously, both the philosophers and Guardians live under conditions of total communism. They own no private property, are reared together, and hence don't know their parents or siblings. Strictly speaking, there are philosopher-queens as well, and also female soldiers, since the elite has gender equality (a point that has puzzled modern feminists). Below the elite groups stand merchants, artisans and farmers, but no slaves. The castes are (almost) hereditary, eugenics are used to ensure the fitness of the elite groups, and the population are induced to believe in fantastic, religious myths. The myths are noble lies welding this strange society together. Did I leave something out? Oh, and the poets are banished from the city! In other words, the ideal society described in "The Republic" looks like a curious blend of Sparta, Egypt and India (at least the two former societies would have been known to Plato).

So where do we go from here? The most moderate interpretation is that although Plato did regard "The Republic" as the best society, he didn't really believe that such a society was possible. It was a deliberate utopia. This raises a lot of intriguing questions, such as how Plato imagined the best *possible* society to look like, or what function "The Republic" was supposed to have. The first question is to some extent answered in "The Laws" and the Seventh Epistle, where Plato advocates a mixed constitution. What the answer to the second question might be, I honestly don't know. Perhaps nobody does. A wild guess: the point of Plato's utopia was to explore certain ideas without hindrance, throw certain concepts into as sharp relief as possible, in other words, do exactly what modern utopian novels do, in contrast to political utopias meant to be taken seriously.

I think that Plato clearly saw both the dilemma of democracy, and the dilemmas of tyranny and oligarchy, what we would simply call "dictatorship". Plato saw his teacher Socrates being persecuted by the regime of the Thirty Tyrants, but he also saw him being executed by the demos. The twin dilemmas of both dictatorship and democracy were starkly visible in the life of Socrates. The perennial problem of democracy is: what happens if the people vote the wrong way? (In Athens, the problem was even more pronounced, since many positions were filled by lot!) The perennial problem of dictatorship: how do we stop a ruler from becoming a tyrant, if the people can't even vote? Plato's solution to the problem was to balance the demos and the elite by a mixed constitution. In "The Laws" he took Sparta and the Cretan city-states as his concrete models, but he might just as well have harkened back to the days of Solon, or made use of the systems in Carthage or Republican Rome.

Plato's concrete solutions aren't ours, of course. Even the Athenian democracy he criticized was a far cry from our modern conceptions of democracy. From our vantage point, a mixed constitution on a Spartan or Cretan model actually looks even worse than the Athenian system. Note also the irony that "The Laws" lack the "socialist" and "feminist" traits of the Platonic utopia. Also, there is slavery in Magnesia, the name given by Plato to his realistic Cretan city-state, while there doesn't seem to be any slaves in "The Republic". And yet, despite the obvious differences between Plato's time and ours, the dilemma is still with us! Modern democracies attempt to solve it by combining universal suffrage with a division of powers, by a federal structure, or by a strong constitution guaranteeing basic human rights, a constitution that cannot be changed, at least not by a simple majority. Our methods may be different from the Platonic ones, but we are still trying to solve the same dilemma as he experienced in the aftermath of the Peloponessian War.

It could further be argued that no clever constitutional solution is possible in the long run, if the citizens loose their sense of civic duty. And it further seems that civic duty is possible only in a relatively small state, without too large income or property differentials between the citizens. Indeed, even Plato's moderate city-state in "The Laws" insists on the citizens having roughly equal amounts of landed property, property that can be neither bought nor sold. Of course, our concept of citizenship is much broader than the Platonic one: women and even resident aliens are citizens, and there are no slaves. Yet, Plato's general point seems to be correct.

So far, I have only touched on those points in "The Republic" and "The Laws" that could be creatively developed without offending our modern sensibilities too much. But, of course, "The Republic" also deals with other issues, more disturbing ones to our liberal ears. Are people really born equal? Are there innate differences between individuals? Is it always permissible for the rulers to tell the truth? Do societies need myths and noble lies? Ironically, Plato also asked questions that should disturb some conservatives: Given that innate differences are individual rather than sex-related, does this mean that the sexes are equal? And what's so good about private property and foreign trade anyway?

Perhaps that's the main function played by "The Republic". It's a work of provocation, a work meant to shock us into boldly questioning our preconceptions, a work that's the very opposite of a noble lie. Pace Popper, "The Republic" might actually be Plato's most Socratic work!

[This isn't really a review of this particular edition, but a general comment on Plato's dialogue, and its relation to some other works, but placing it here felt like the most natural option.]

Editorial Review:

This is a completely new translation of one of the great works of Western political thought. In addition to Tom Griffith's vivid, dignified and accurate rendition of Plato's text, this edition is suitable for students at all levels. It contains an introduction that assesses the cultural background to the Republic, its place within political philosophy, and its general argument; succinct notes in the text; an analytical summary of content; a full glossary of proper names; a chronology of important events; and a guide to further reading.

Three Early Modern Utopias: Thomas More: Utopia / Francis Bacon: New Atlantis / Henry Neville: The Isle of Pines (Oxford World's Classics)

Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Henry Neville

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Editorial Review:

With the publication of Utopia (1516), Thomas More provided a scathing analysis of the shortcomings of his own society, a realistic suggestion for an alternative mode of social organization, and a satire on unrealistic idealism. Enormously influential, it remains a challenging as well as a playful text. This edition reprints Ralph Robinson's 1556 translation from More's original Latin together with letters and illustrations that accompanied early editions of Utopia.

This edition also includes two other, hitherto less accessible, utopian narratives. New Atlantis (1627) offers a fictional illustration of Francis Bacon's visionary ideal of the role that science should play in the modern society. Henry Neville's The Isle of Pines (1668), a precursor of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, engages with some of the sexual, racial, and colonialist anxieties of the end of the early modern period. Bringing together these three New World texts, and situating them in wider Renaissance context, this edition-- including letters, maps, alphabets that accompanied early editions--illustrates the diversity of the early modern utopian imagination, as well as the different purposes to which it could be put.

Utopia (Everyman's Library (Cloth))

Thomas More

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Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Utopia: Not As Free As You Might Think 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

When Thomas More wrote UTOPIA in 1516, he attempted to postulate how human beings could create a society that would be as nearly perfect as possible. At least that is what is commonly believed that he tried to do. For those who have read his book, they immediately see some troubling issues. The first sticky point is to define what he meant by the term "utopia." Did he mean a totally democratic state; such as the ancient Greeks had, in which each citizen had direct voting in all issues? Or perhaps More was simply updating Plato, who saw his Republic as a society governed by a carefully selected breed of rulers who would rule an equally carefully selected brood of subjects? Or again, was More attempting to strike an impossible balance between the burgeoning rise of Renaissance humanism with a stifling set of conflicting Christian religions? It is too easy for moderns to suggest that he was merely holding up Utopia as a fun-house type mirror by which he wished his contemporaries could see themselves reflected as zigzag images and perhaps be ashamed enough--or exhorted enough--to alter their behavior for the better. We today are tempted to judge his meaning by 20th century standards, which do not always draw a clear distinction among the virtues that More's Renaissance contemporaries took for granted but today we dismiss as outdated, or worse, irrelevant.

The book itself has two parts. The first includes More, who places himself in the book as a traveler to Antwerp who meets Peter Giles, who in turn introduces him to Raphael Hythloday, a name that Moore punningly notes that in Greek means "nonsense speaker." Hythloday mentions that he journeyed with Amerigo Vespucci to America and along the way encountered the mythical land of Utopia. This first part is slow reading in that More does little more than discuss some general reforms of potential benefit to England, most of which involved agrarian, economic, judicial, military, and criminal justice matters, all of which obliquely suggest that what worked in Utopia might work in England as well. It is the second part that has generated considerable controversy as to what More really meant his readers to grasp.

For those who come to the second part of UTOPIA and expect a 16th century version of Eden, the results are profoundly shocking. When More details the basic government setup as one in which its citizens are living in a ruthless police state with the death penalty meted out for a variety of reasons, readers suddenly grasp that Utopia may not be all that different from Plato, who similarly envisioned his society as one free from the degenerating influences of poetry and the basic tenets of free speech. When this sobering concept sinks in, then the term "utopia" begins to lose its cache as a synonym for a land of unrivalled happiness. But if these readers look at Utopia through the eyes of More and not their own, then a different Utopia arises. As an educated classicist fully versed in traditional Christian orthodoxy, More was trained to evaluate any social structure according to the non-Christian but humanistic Cardinal Virtues of wisdom, fortitude, temperance, and justice, and then compare these to the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity. More made it clear that both sets of virtues were needed to make Utopia an enduring entity. More was not optimistic enough to truly believe the social inequities in England (or Utopia for that matter) could be so easily eliminated merely by rearranging the pieces of the social pie. What humans of any society needed to ensure genuine freedom from tyranny was mastery of the far more unmanageable Seven Deadly Sins. Of these More suggests that by downplaying the importance of gold, by limiting the nature and amount of material wealth, and by forcing all citizens from the highest to lowest to share in all types of drudgery, that the worst of the sins, Pride, will be vanquished, thus leaving Utopia as ready to endure in the face of what to other and less advanced societies would be tantalizing but deadly temptations.

What emerges then in Utopia is a mythical land based on equally mythical virtues that can house a citizenry such as never existed in human history nor is likely to. But More felt that even if his contemporaries managed to alter for the better their profligate ways, then a small sliver of Utopia might result. For More and perhaps for us today, that might be good enough.

Editorial Review:

Introduction by Jenny Mezciems

Paths in Utopia (Martin Buber Library)

Martin Buber

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Editorial Review:

"A summary and scholarly study of humanity's search for the perfect social structure". -- The Christian Science Monitor

God's Government Begun: The Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform, 1842-1846 (Religion in North America)

Thomas D. Hamm

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Editorial Review:

Growing out of the most radical fringes of the abolitionist movement, the Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform set out to inaugurate a new social order based on the principles of nonresistance. The Society founded eight utopian communities, which, though short-lived, were the setting for the most radical questioning of antebellum American society. The members of the Society renounced all forms of coercive relationships. They attempted to live without government or private property and to model new visions of work, education, religion, economics, women's rights and roles, and community. This book tells the story of their impassioned attempt to transform the world and begin the "Government of God."

Man and Mission: E.B. Gaston and the Origins of the Fairhope Single Tax Colony

Paul M. Gaston

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Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities (Cambridge Studies in Religious Traditions)

Steven Collins

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Editorial Review:

This book presents a new answer to the question: what is nirvana? Part One distinguishes between systematic and narrative thought in the Pali texts of Theravada Buddhism, looking at the place of nirvana in both. Part Two explores other Buddhist utopias and relates Buddhist utopianism to studies of European and American utopian writing. Steven Collins discusses these issues in relation to textuality, world history, and ideology in premodern civilizations, aiming to contribute to a new vision of Buddhist history that integrates the inside and the outside of texts.

Oneida Community: An Autobiography, 1851-1876 (York State Books)

Constance Robertson

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The Utopian Alternative: Fourierism in Nineteenth-Century America (Cornell Paperbacks)

Carl J. Guarneri

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Editorial Review:

Winner of the 1992 Society of Historians of the Early American Republic Book Award

The utopian socialism of Charles Fourier spread throughout Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, but it was in the United States that it generated the most intense excitement. In this rich and engaging narrative, Carl J. Guarneri traces the American Fourierist movement from its roots in the religious, social, and economic upheavals of the 1830s, through its bold communal experiments of the 1840s, to its lingering twilight after the Civil War.