Utopias A Brief History from Ancient Writings to Virtual Communities [Paperback]

• Explores the purpose of utopias, what they reveal about the societies who conceive them, and how utopias have changed over the centuries
• Unique in including both non-Western and Western visions of utopia
• Explores the many forms utopias have taken – prophecies and oratory, writings, political movements, world's fairs, physical communities – and also discusses high-tech and cyberspace visions for the first time
• The first book to analyze the implicitly utopian dimensions of reform crusades like Technocracy of the 1930s and Modernization Theory of the 1950s, and the laptop classroom initiatives of recent years

Introduction 1

1 The Nature of Utopias 5

Utopias Defined 5

Utopias Differ from both Millenarian Movements and Science Fiction 8

Utopias' Spiritual Qualities are Akin to those of Formal Religions 9

Utopias'Real Goal: Not Prediction of the Future but Improvement of the Present 12

How and When Utopias are Expected to be Established 13

2 The Variety of Utopias 16

The Global Nature of Utopias: Utopias are Predominantly but not Exclusively Western 16

The Several Genres of Utopianism: Prophecies and Oratory, Political Movements, Communities, Writings, World's Fairs, Cyberspace 24

3 The European Utopias and Utopians and Their Critics 47

The Pioneering European Visionaries and Their Basic Beliefs: Plato's Republic and More's Utopia 47

Forging the Connections Between Scl£Û