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The Story of Utopias, by Lewis Mumford, [1922], at sacred-texts.com
FOR the benefit of the reader who wishes to travel further along the trails opened up in this survey of utopias, I am giving a list of the principal books on the subject. This list includes all the important utopias that are accessible in English, as well as a few that are not; but it is not exhaustive, for the region of Utopia has its swamps and arid places as well as its fertile and cultivated land; and no one but a scholarly explorer need attempt to enter the more forbidding parts of the country.
Needless to say, in dealing with our historic utopias I had a rough criterion of selection. I set out to treat such plans for the improvement of the human community as had been embodied in complete pictures of an ideal commonwealth: this excluded important essays in politics like Hobbes' Leviathan and Harrington's Oceana; and it ruled out any treatment of abstract idealisms which, however important, did not exemplify the essential utopian method. Next, I resolved to deal at length only with those utopias which have exercised some influence on thought and life, particularly in the Western European world. Third, I sought to emphasize what was common in the methods and ends of the classic utopias; making plain their relations within the world of utopias and their relevance in the present day, rather than attempting to show in any detail the social milieu in which each utopian wrote. In dealing with the nineteenth century my criterion became a little shaky; and I frankly chose the nineteenth century utopias on the basis of their association with temporal movements like state socialism, the single tax, and syndicalism, rather
than because of their conformity to standards which served to weed out irrelevant utopias in the earlier centuries. In devoting a little space to Fourier and Spence and giving short shrift to Owen I have tried to restore these interesting and significant figures to the place that they deserve. There will doubtless be disagreements over my selections and the amount of space I have allotted to various writers; but at least, where there has been madness there has also been method.
Certain parts of the argument are not covered by this list of utopias. The best introductions to utopian literature in general are in German; see R. Blucher's excellent pamphlet on Moderne Utopien; Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sozialismus, Bonn: 1920. While Mr. Van Wyck Brooks put me independently on the trail of Rabelais’ Abbey of Theleme I must acknowledge, with as much grace as possible, that Herr Blueher anticipated me in grasping this clue to Renascence culture; and if any credit is due, he deserves it. The most exhaustive catalogue of pre-nineteenth century utopias is contained in Kautsky's Vorläufer des Modernen Sozialismus. Max Beer's History of British Socialism has an excellent discussion of the relation of the utopians to socialism. See also Moritz Kaufmann's Utopias; or Schemes of Social Improvement, from Sir Thomas More to Karl Marx, London: 1879.
The chapter on the Country House might well be prefaced by Mr. Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class, a satire which seems to me unique in scholarship and originality. The importance of our social myths and our collective representations has been noted by a whole school of French sociologists who follow Émile Durkheim; and the dynamic force of ideas has been treated by Alfred Fouillée. On both these topics there is a whole literature; and it would give a sense of false simplicity to single out any particular essay. There is a fairly popular discussion of the place of myths and ideals in the George Sorel's Reflexions
on Violence, and Benjamin Kidd's Science of Power (especially Chapter V.).
As a loose illustration of the general method and outlook embodied in this book I refer to the Making of the Future Series, edited by Messrs. Patrick Geddes and Victor Branford and published by Williams & Norgate, London. There is an able exposition of the regionalist movement and of the fundamental realities upon which this movement is based in two books published in that series; namely, Professor Fleure's Human Geography in Western Europe and C. B. Fawcett's The Provinces of England. Two works by the editors, The Coming Polity and Our Social Inheritance are likewise suggestive. Professor Geddes is the outstanding exponent of the Eutopian method both in thought and in practical activity; and the reader should consult his City Development (1904) and his Town-Planning towards City Development: a Report to the Durbar of Indore, 2 vols. Indore, 1918. Both of these books are mines from which all sorts of precious thoughts can be quarried; and it is unfortunate that the first is out of print and the second almost unaccessible. Professor Geddes’ work exemplifies concretely a good part of what I have sought to explain and define in not altogether adequate prose.
PLATO (427 B.C.-347 B.C.). The Republic. Translated with notes and essays by Benjamin Jowett. Oxford: 1894. See also Plato's Critias and Statesman in the same edition. The Laws, which is a more detailed attempt to work out the details of a good polity, is so lacking in Plato's original inspiration that, but for Aristotle's allusion to it, one would promptly take it for the work of another hand.
MORE, SIR THOMAS (1478-1535). Utopia. Published originally in Latin in 1516. There are numerous modern editions. See Ideal Commonwealths, edited by Henry Morley.
ANDREÆ, JOHANN VALENTIN (1586-1654). Christianopolis. Published in 1619 and translated in 1916 by Felix Emil Held under the title of Christianopolis: An Ideal State of the 17th Century. Oxford University Press. Mr. Held's introduction contains an account of Andreæ's life.
BACON, FRANCIS (1561-1626). The New Atlantis. Published in 1627. Bacon contemplated writing a second part which would deal with the laws of his ideal commonwealth. See Ideal Commonwealths.
CAMPANELLA, TOMASSO (1568-1639). The City of the Sun. Published in 1637 as Civitas Solis Poetica: Idea Reipublicæ Philosophiæ. See Ideal Commonwealths.
GOTT, SAMUEL (—). Nova Solyma. London: 1648.
VAYRASSE, DENIS (—). L’Histoire des Sévérambes. Written in 1672 and translated into English as The History of the Sevarites, written by one Captain Siden,
[paragraph continues] London: 1675. In Kautsky's Vorhäufer des Modernen Sozialismus this utopia is given high praise and is ranked as the French parallel of More's Utopia; but I feel that this is a sad error in judgment which perhaps arose out of the bare fact that the first law of the great dictator Sevarias was to put all private property in the hands of the state, to be disposed of absolutely by its authority, and to do away with distinctions of rank and hereditary dignity. There is little that is fresh or imaginative in Vayrasse's treatment, however, and there is nothing like More's detailed effort to guard against usurpation of power by the ruling classes. As simple fiction, the History of the Sevarites is, however, readable.
TIPHAIGNE DE LA ROCHE, C. F. (—). Giphantia: or, A view of what has passed, what is now passing, and what will pass, in the world. Translated into English and printed in London, 1760-1761. This is a pithy little satire which I include in this list of utopias out of the courtesy that is due to good literature.
BERINGTON, SIMON (1680-1755). The Adventures of Gaudentio di Lucca. This work was attributed to Bishop Berkeley and published in Dublin in 1738. It is partly a novel and partly a social criticism.
MERCIER, LOUIS SEBASTIEN (1740-1814). Memoirs of the Year 2500. Published in French in 1772 and translated into English, Liverpool: 1802.
SPENCE, THOMAS (1750-1814). Description of Spensonia. Constitution of Spensonia. London: 1795. Privately printed at the Courier Press; Leamington Spa: 1917.
FOURIER, CHARLES FRANCOIS MARIE (1772-1837). Traité de l’Association domestique agricole. 2 vols. 1822. Le Nouveau Monde Industriel. 2 vols. 1829. See also Albert Brisbane in his General Introduction to the Social Sciences (Fourier's "Social Destinies"), and Selections from the Works of Fourier, translated
by Julia Franklin, with an introduction by Charles Gide, London: 1901.
CABET, ÉTIENNE (1788-1856). Voyage en Icarie. Published in 1845 and numerous editions followed during the next five years; see that of the Bureau du Populaie, Paris: 1848.
BUCKINGHAM, JAMES SILK (1786-1855). National Evils and Practical Remedies, with a plan for a model town. London: 1818.
BULWER-LYTTON, E. (1803-1873). The Coming Race; or the New Utopia. London: 185—. A fantastic romance about a people who live underground, possess detachable wings, and command a potency known as "vril." It is perhaps not altogether without significance that this new hierarchy of industrial angels was conceived by Lytton in the same decade that saw the building of the Crystal Palace.
PEMBERTON, ROBERT (—). The Happy Colony. London: 1854. This is an appeal to the working class, somewhat similar in temper and method to Buckingham's appeal to the middle class. Pemberton had an individual system of psychology which he desired to apply in education. This utopia has now only a limited historical significance.
BELLAMY, EDWARD (1850-1898). Looking Backward; Boston: 1888. Equality; Boston: 1897.
HERTZKA, THEODOR (1815-?). Freeland: A Social Anticipation. First edition published in German, 1889; English translation published by the British Freeland Association in 1891. A Visit to Freeland, or the New Paradise Regained. Translation published by the above Association, London: 1894. The first work lays the foundations for the utopia; the second is the ideal commonwealth in action.
MORRIS, WILLIAM (1834-1896). News from Nowhere. London: 1890. There have been numerous editions.
HOWARD, EBENEZER (1850-?). Garden Cities of Tomorrow. London: 1902. First published as Tomorrow in 1898. Unique among utopian books in that its eutopia has been realized. See numerous descriptions of Letchworth, the first Garden City.
HUDSON, W. H. (—). A Crystal Age. London: 1906.
THIRION, EMILE (1825-?). Neustria: Utopie Individualiste. Paris: 1901. This is one of the rare, deliberately individualistic utopias, founded on work, liberty, and property. It assumes that a colony of Girondists were able to establish themselves in South America.
TARDE, GABRIEL (1843-1904). Underground Man. London: 1905. A deft and well-conceived fantasy, full of excellent criticism. Towards the past it is a utopia of reconstruction, towards the future—but herein lies much of its charm!—it is one of escape.
WELLS, H. G. (1866-?). A Modern Utopia. New York: 1905.
CRAM, RALPH ADAMS (1863-?). Walled Towns. Boston: 1919. Dr. Cram does not classify this work as a utopia; but the honest critic cannot help giving it that label. Dr. Cram sees no basis for eutopia without the system of values and the sanctions perpetuated by the Christian Church; since this leaves the greater part of humanity in Darkness, I cannot agree with him. Dr. Cram, however, is a fine scholar and a stimulating critic; and if one could only grant his assumptions his conclusions would be magnificent.
RICHMOND, SIR WILLIAM BLAKE (1842-1921). Democracy: False or True? London: 1920.
MORLEY, HENRY. Ideal Commonwealths; Plutarch's Lycurgus, More's Utopia, Bacon's New Atlantis, Campanella's City of the Sun, and a Fragment of Hall's Mundus Alter et Idem, with an introduction by Henry Morley. London: G. Routledge, 1886.