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Utopia

By Sir Thomas More

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Even the most cursory glance through the history of philosophical literature will show that the primary obsession of humanity’s thinkers has been the imagining of new worlds. We are, fundamentally, creatures of inventions and creativity and a vast amount of our literary tradition is devoted to this practice. Chief among these works are those that we call “utopian” fictions, works of prose that flesh out new ways of living and of organizing society. These works have been the preoccupation of philosophers for millennia, from Plato’s Atlantis to The Communist Manifesto. Though certainly not the first of its kind, Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (known also by its more presumptuous title: A truly golden little book, no less beneficial than entertaining, of a republic's best state and of the new island Utopia) would seem on its surface to be another such effort from the ranks of philosophy. More’s Utopia reminds us that it is the right and responsibility of those who can imagine a different future to bring it to the consciousness of the species, that it may be learned from and the best of it adopted.

Title Page
Introduction
Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, of the best state of a commonwealth
Of their Towns, particularly of Amaurot
Of Their Magistrates
Of Their Trades, And Manner Of Life
Of Their Traffic
Of The Travelling Of The Utopians
Of Their Slaves, And Of Their Marriages
Of Their Military Discipline
Of The Religions Of The Utopians