Rating: 
Summary: Utopia, a new way to mobilize energies ...
Review: "Utopia", written in 1516 by Thomas More, is probably one of the most important books ever written. Why?. Simply because it influenced many people, and motivated many events: it made a difference..."Utopia" means, literally, "no place". The word didn't exist until More coined it in this book. He wanted to make a critic regarding the English society of his time, but needed to cloak it under a "fictional" mantle due to censure. Displeasing the king was very dangerous in More's time... What is this short novel about?. Well, More introduces us to an imaginary character, Raphael Hythloday, a traveler that has visited a distant country: Utopia. After meeting More, Raphael tells him about the country he visited, and afterwards More writes a book about what he was told. To begin with, in that country community is more important that private aims, and that fact permeates all social and political life. There is no private propriety of the means of production, and everything belongs to everybody. Work is obligatory to all healthy men and women, and those who want to do nothing are punished with forced labor. There is no money, but everybody has what is needed to live well, although frugally. Thanks to the fact labor is well distributed, leisure time is available to all. As a result, men and women (equals in this society) can dedicate time to cultivate their minds... Other important points that should be highlighted regarding Utopia, especially because they contrast strongly with the situation of More's England, are that in this country all religions are allowed, and that there isn't an autocratic rule (a democratically elected assembly and different local governments are elected). All in all, equality prevails, and thanks to the above mentioned arrangements harmony is achieved. "Utopia" was written a few years later that Machiavelli's "The Prince", but the differences between the two books are incredible. In "Utopia" instead of praising the power of princes More wanted to show clearly all that was wrong in English society because it was governed by a bad ruler. He didn't tell others to face reality: he asked them to criticize it, in order to improve it later. Thus, Moro established the essential traits of what was later known as the "utopian method": to describe in other situation, with a prejudice of optimism, all that that we don't like in our society. With "Utopia" Moro created a new way to mobilize energies, and showed options that had remained hidden from the eyes of those who weren't happy with their societies. Behind the name of "fiction", he gave politics new intruments of discussion, and opened to it novel ways of considering reality, in the light of what could/should be. There is no politics without the idea that something better can be achieved, without the kind of imagination that allows us to think that something better is possible. Moro made that evident... I think that that is more than enough to strongly recommend this book to you :) Belen Alcat
Rating:
Summary: Utopia, a new way to mobilize energies ...
Review: "Utopia", written in 1516 by Thomas More, is probably one of the most important books ever written. Why?. Simply because it influenced many people, and motivated many events: it made a difference... "Utopia" means, literally, "no place". The word didn't exist until More coined it in this book. He wanted to make a critic regarding the English society of his time, but needed to cloak it under a "fictional" mantle due to censure. Displeasing the king was very dangerous in More's time... What is this short novel about?. Well, More introduces us to an imaginary character, Raphael Hythloday, a traveler that has visited a distant country: Utopia. After meeting More, Raphael tells him about the country he visited, and afterwards More writes a book about what he was told. To begin with, in that country community is more important that private aims, and that fact permeates all social and political life. There is no private propriety of the means of production, and everything belongs to everybody. Work is obligatory to all healthy men and women, and those who want to do nothing are punished with forced labor. There is no money, but everybody has what is needed to live well, although frugally. Thanks to the fact labor is well distributed, leisure time is available to all. As a result, men and women (equals in this society) can dedicate time to cultivate their minds... Other important points that should be highlighted regarding Utopia, especially because they contrast strongly with the situation of More's England, are that in this country all religions are allowed, and that there isn't an autocratic rule (a democratically elected assembly and different local governments are elected). All in all, equality prevails, and thanks to the above mentioned arrangements harmony is achieved. "Utopia" was written a few years later that Machiavelli's "The Prince", but the differences between the two books are incredible. In "Utopia" instead of praising the power of princes More wanted to show clearly all that was wrong in English society because it was governed by a bad ruler. He didn't tell others to face reality: he asked them to criticize it, in order to improve it later. Thus, Moro established the essential traits of what was later known as the "utopian method": to describe in other situation, with a prejudice of optimism, all that that we don't like in our society. With "Utopia" Moro created a new way to mobilize energies, and showed options that had remained hidden from the eyes of those who weren't happy with their societies. Behind the name of "fiction", he gave politics new intruments of discussion, and opened to it novel ways of considering reality, in the light of what could/should be. There is no politics without the idea that something better can be achieved, without the kind of imagination that allows us to think that something better is possible. Moro made that evident... I think that that is more than enough to strongly recommend this book to you :) Belen Alcat
Rating: 
Summary: "In no place"
Review: As a social critique of Enlgish and European society, this book is very effective. It is also beautifully written. But it should not be read as the depiction of what society should be like. Thomas More, a wise and brave man executed by orders of Henry VIII, knew that Utopia shouldn't be taken very seriously, and that is exactly why he used the word Utopia to name his famous island. Utopia, in latin, means "in no place", that what can not exist. The problem is that this simple fact was not understood by many. And so, "utopianism" was born. The preposterous belief that there is a universal and definitive form of organization for human societies led to disasters like Nazism and Communism. By organizing everything perfectly (according to who?), these systems become the negation of the very essence of the human being: its innate imperfection and its need to be constantly changing, always on the move. It is simply impossible that some political, economic and social system resolves once and for all the troubles of humanity. Problems are exactly what make humans progress and reform constantly. Besides, the State has proven indispensable for survival, but also limited in what it can accomplish (in Utopia, the State provides everything for everybody). Stagnant societies degenerate and disappear, or remain to live from the charity of dynamic societies. Closed, perennial social systems, simply don't work: there is abundant proof in history, ancient or recent. "Utopia" is an excellent account of human shortcomings and a good tale, but it is not, nor was intended to be, a recipe with solutions for the world. Aldous Huxley and George Orwell have shown us what might happen in a supposed Utopia. The Communist world was worse. And Anthony Burgess clearly shows us in "A Clockwork Orange", that in "perfect" societies, the only way to practice freedom is violence. Let's not be perfect.
Rating:
Summary: A Look at the World Through the Eyes of Moore
Review: As a social critique this book is very effective with answers to many arguments. Thomas More is a wise, brave and educated man who was executed by orders of Henry VIII, and wrote Utopia more as an explanation of why society needed to be far from perfect in order to be enjoyable. Utopia, meaning in Latin "in no place", was written entirely in satire, and many have said that it was a great source of entertainment for the more educated as they watched those less educated argue on the side of a Utopian state while quoting Moore, and having never seen the satire present while reading. Mr. Moore's Utopia touches on every aspect of the human existance as it would be experienced if we prescribed to this way of life. I found many of his discriptions colorful, and commonly found myself of the verge of anger before realizing that Mr. Morre was more often than not simply playing the devil's advocate. This was very enjoyable for me. I would recommend that everyone take a risk and read this one.
Rating:
Summary: A Look at the World Through the Eyes of Moore
Review: As a social critique this book is very effective with answers to many arguments. Thomas More is a wise, brave and educated man who was executed by orders of Henry VIII, and wrote Utopia more as an explanation of why society needed to be far from perfect in order to be enjoyable. Utopia, meaning in Latin "in no place", was written entirely in satire, and many have said that it was a great source of entertainment for the more educated as they watched those less educated argue on the side of a Utopian state while quoting Moore, and having never seen the satire present while reading. Mr. Moore's Utopia touches on every aspect of the human existance as it would be experienced if we prescribed to this way of life. I found many of his discriptions colorful, and commonly found myself of the verge of anger before realizing that Mr. Morre was more often than not simply playing the devil's advocate. This was very enjoyable for me. I would recommend that everyone take a risk and read this one.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Suberp!
Review: It has been over two years since I read this novel and I read it again and it's just better than ever. I truly do recommend this to anyone interested in a classic for the ages.
Rating:
Summary: Utopia is satire
Review: Please, please understand: Utopia is not Thomas Moore's philosophy or dream of perfect world, or something unbearably cruel that he believed was right in real time. Utopia is SATIRE. Entirely satire. Political lampooning.
It is unsettling to read reviews by people who have completely missed this, which is precisely the kind of thing Moore was satirizing.
Read it for the brilliant piece that it is - do not take it literally for heaven's sake!
This is akin to taking Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" seriously, and failing to see the social and political satire - Swift proposes eating Irish children to stop the overpopulation. Satire!
Rating:
Summary: Comparing editions
Review: The Yale edition (Miller's translation - $6.95) gives a bare list of events in More life, but the short introduction mostly focuses on the syntax and rhetoric of the book; there's very little in it about the social and historical background. It omits the commendatory letters from various humanists, but includes both the opening letter to Giles from More, and the postscript letter to Giles from the 1517 edition (but not the Busleyden letter about Utopia as a real place that prompted it). (It also has the 1518 woodcut map of Utopia.) The sidenotes that Miller thinks are not mere section markers are placed in the footnotes.
The Hackett edition (Wooton's translation - also $6.95) has a pointed persuasively argued introduction focusing on the translator's own interpretation of the work; he relates it to More's life and the paradoxical double vision of Christian piety and ordinary social life also found in More's friend Erasmus's "The Sileni of Alicbiades," which is included. This edition puts the sidenotes in the margins, and also includes all the introductory and appended material by others, the 1516 map, the Utopian alphabet and the garden woodcut, and black and white illustrations of portraits of More, Erasmus and Gilles.
I haven't seen the other options.
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Summary: Just another Classic you need to read
Review: There is a lot of discussion about this book, as there should be. What did More intend when he wrote it, is it a satire or a vision of the perfect society, all are questions people try to ask in their reviews of this volume. Having read this book twice, both times for college courses, I can tell you that the Dover Thrift edition is wonderful, the book is wonderful, the price it right, and you need to read this book. Afterwards, I encourage you to join the debate, something all books strive to do, and greats ones excel at.
Rating: 
Summary: Unreal dream.
Review: Thomas More dreams of a world of tolerance and antimilitarism, but also of collectivism and anticapitalism (a world without money). For him, a world based on private property cannot be prosperous and just. He considered all treaties between prosperous states as a conspiracy of riches.
So, he was more radical than the most diehard leftist of today.
His principal targets are kings, religious authorities and the landowners with their disastrous policy of enclosures, driving all farmers and their families into certain poverty and death.
He gives us also a juicy mockery of the Swiss, who sold themselves as mercenaries to the highest bidders.
This book is still a worth-while read.
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