Faber Book of Utopias [Paperback]

John Carey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2000

An anthology of schemes, stories and ideas which people have dreamt of as Utopia. Provides a picture of the hopes and desires of the age in which each Utopia was conceived. The anthology encompasses many noble and selfless schemes but also reveals a trail of folly, tyranny and attempts at social control.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (September 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571203175
• ISBN-13: 978-0571203178
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #501,766 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic chronological compendium of imagined futures, August 28, 2010

By 

Shel Graves (Seattle) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Faber Book of Utopias (Hardcover)

This fantastic compendium of snippets of essays, fictions, speeches, and poetry written by thinkers from 1490 B.C. to 1998 imagines what the world could be. The visions are diverse: serene and tormented, heavenly and horrific.

Exploring works from Plato in 360 B.C. to Michio Kaku in 1998, by political figures from Abraham Lincoln to Adolf Hitler, and by philosophers from Thomas Hobbs to Karl Marx, provides a chronological narrative of how utopian ideas have changed over time and been influenced by the events of their times and the thoughts of other writers.

The editor John Carey provides analysis that helps put the reading into historical context and in view of what is known of the author's life. His comments are objective and useful, but not dispassionate.

Recommended for: anyone interested in utopian (or dystopian) literature as a reader or writer and for anyone working for social change.

Read this: if you have works by the authors of famous utopian/dystopian works on your reading list such as Francis Bacon, Edward Bellemy, Elizabeth Corbett, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Samuel Butler, or Marge Piercy. The anthology also provides some insight into the utopian thought of writers including Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, W.B. Yeats, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Voltaire, and John Milton.

Notable: "Sanctuaries for Sadists," The Marquis de Sade's version of utopia, Philosophy in the Bedroom, 1795 (notably disturbing); "Samoan Fibs," Coming of Age in Samoa, 1929 (Margaret Mead was lied to); "Women in Cages," Swastika Night, 1937 (Katherine Burdekin imagines the Nazi regime's enslavement of women); and "What Women Want," a sampling of women's responses when asked the question in 1995 at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women.

Quotable: "To watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over ploughshare or spade; to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray -- these are the things that make men happy; they have always had the power of doing these, they never will have the power to do more. The world's prosperity or adversity depends upon our knowing and teaching these few things: but upon iron, or glass, or electricity, or steam, no wise. And I am Utopian and enthusiastic enough to believe, that the time will come when the world will discover this." -- "The Really Precious Things," John Ruskin Modern Painters, 1856

5.0 out of 5 stars Get it, October 26, 2011

By 

A. D. hodgson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Faber Book of Utopias (Hardcover)

I love the Faber series, first off. I have 6 of these volumes and all of them make for great reading. This is my favorite thus far. You get a terrific succinct and useful introduction by the editor, then a selection from the text itself. They give you a great and varied idea of Utopian thinking; from the brilliant, to the mad, to the disturbing, to the hilarious. These books are exceptional for just pulling off the shelf when you have only 10 minutes that you don't want to waste and digesting some wonderful thought-provoking excerpt, then getting on with your day. And with this volume in particular what is remarkable is how ingrained utopian thinking seems to be. I never knew so many famous people had created their own perfect worlds. Fabulous variety. Can't recommend it enough.