Global Utopias Project Resource Guide

The sequel to Bellamy's "Looking Backward."

"Samuel Butler (1835-1902) used his satirical tale, Erewhon, to promote of his alternative interpretation of the evolution of species, which accorded cells a will and a capacity to shape their environment and to pass acquired habits on to its progeny. Butler satirises the injustices of Victorian England by means of a utopian society in which all the social mores and laws were the exact opposite of what they were in England, just as its ideas about evolution were different." From marxists.org

"Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888) is a thunderous indictment of industrial capitalism and a resplendent vision of life in a socialist utopia" (from WorldCat record).

Read the full text of A Modern Uotpia through Internet Archive.

"One of the best-known French utopia novels of the 17th century. The narrator of the novel braves a long sea journey and dangerous creatures in order to reach the 'unknown Southern Land.'" (From WorldCat record). Original text is in French.

From around 380 B.C., this classic work by famed Greek Philosopher Plato, is written in the form of a Socratic dialogue. Read for free on Project Gutenberg.

Full text from Project Gutenberg.

Probably the most famous Utopian work. It is both a work of fiction about an island community as well as a work of political philosophy. The text is available for free from Project Gutenberg.

"Six hundred years into the future, humans are bred by cloning, and 'mother' and 'father' are forbidden words. Originally published in 1932, Huxley's terrifying vision of a controlled and emotionless future "Utopian" society is truly startling in its prediction of modern scientific and cultural phenomena, including test-tube babies and rampant drug abuse." (from WorldCat record)

"A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras--a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to reunite the two planets, which have been divided by centuries of distrust. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart. To visit Urras--to learn, to teach, to share--will require great sacrifice and risks, which Shevek willingly accepts. But the ambitious scientist's gift is soon seen as a threat, and in the profound conflict that ensues, he must reexamine his beliefs even as he ignites the fires of change" (from WorldCat record).

"Ecotopia was founded when northern California, Oregon, and Washington seceded from the Union to create a ʺstable-stateʺ ecosystem: the perfect balance between human beings and the environment. Now, twenty years later, the isolated, mysterious Ecotopia welcomes its first officially sanctioned American visitor: New York Times-Post reporter Will Weston. Like a modern Gulliver, the skeptical Weston is by turns impressed, horrified, and overwhelmed by Ecotopiaʼs strange practices: employee ownership of farms and businesses, the twenty-hour work week, the fanatical elimination of pollution, mini-cities that defeat overcrowding, devotion to trees bordering on worship, a woman-dominated government, and bloody, ritual war games. Bombarded by innovative, unsettling ideas, set afire by a relationship with a sexually forthright Ecotopian woman, Westonʼs conflict of values intensifies-and leads to a startling climax" (from WorldCat).

"In Tolstaya's vaudevillian-dystopian novel, set 200 years after an apocalyptic disaster destroys Russia, a lowly scribe is elevated to a life of privilege and becomes the bibliophile from hell" (WorldCat record).

A satyric work of science fiction that analyzes consumerism.

From a review by George Orwell: "Zamyatin's book is on the whole more relevant to our own situation. In spite of education and the vigilance of the Guardians, many of the ancient human instincts are still there. The teller of the story, D-503, who, though a gifted engineer, is a poor conventional creature, a sort of Utopian Billy Brown of London Town, is constantly horrified by the atavistic* impulses which seize upon him. He falls in love (this is a crime, of course) with a certain I-330 who is a member of an underground resistance movement and succeeds for a while in leading him into rebellion. When the rebellion breaks out it appears that the enemies of The Benefactor are in fact fairly numerous, and these people, apart from plotting the overthrow of the State, even indulge, at the moment when their curtains are down, in such vices as smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. D-503 is ultimately saved from the consequences of his own folly."

"In this collection of original and rediscovered stories of tragedy and hope, the diverse stars are students, street kids, "good girls," kidnappers, and child laborers pitted against their environments, their governments, and sometimes one another as they seek answers in their dystopian worlds" (from WorldCat).

"The Utopia Reader compiles primary texts from a variety of authors and movements in the history of theorizing utopia. Prominent writers and scholars across history have long explored how or why to envision different ways of life. The volume includes texts from classical Greek literature, the Old Testament, and Plato's Republic, to Sir Thomas More's Utopia, to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and beyond. By balancing well-known and obscure examples, the text provides a comprehensive and definitive collection of the various ways Utopias have been conceived throughout history and how Utopian ideals have served as criticisms of existing sociocultural conditions. This new edition includes many historically well-known works, little known but influential texts, and contemporary writings, providing an even more expansive coverage of the varieties of approaches and responses to the concept of utopia in the past, present, and even the future. In particular, the volume now includes feminist writings and work by authors of color, and contends with current concerns, such as the exploration of the ecological ideals of Utopia. Furthermore, Claeys and Sargent highlight twenty-first century trends and popular narrative explorations of Utopias through the genres of young adult dystopias, survivalist dystopias, and non-print utopias." (Library Catalog Record)