Five hundred years since its first publication, Thomas More's astonishingly radical Utopia continues to shape utopian fiction today. More imagines a perfect island nation where thousands live in peace and harmony, men and women are both educated, and all property is communal. Through dialogue and correspondence between the protagonist Raphael Hythloday and his friends and contemporaries, More explores the theories behind war,political disagreements, social quarrels, and wealth distribution and imagines the day-to-day lives of those citizens enjoying freedom from fear, oppression, violence, and suffering. This vision of an ideal world is also a scathing satire of Europe in the sixteenth century and has been hugely influential since publication, shaping utopian fiction even today.
In this quincentenary edition, More's text is introduced by award-winning fiction writer China Mieville, who explores the limits of today's utopias while insisting on the necessity of utopian thinking, and followed by essays from Ursula K. Le Guin, today's most distinguished utopian thinker, on her lifelong engagement with More's project.