This masterly study has a grand sweep. It ranges over centuries, with a
long look backward over several millennia. Yet the history it unfolds is
primarily the story of individuals: thinkers and dreamers who envisaged an
ideal social order and described it persuasively, leaving a mark on their
own and later times. The roster of utopians includes men of all stripes in
different countries and eras–figures as disparate as More and Fourier, the
Marquis de Sade and Edward Bellamy, Rousseau and Marx. Fascinating
character studies of the major figures are among the delights of the book.
Utopian writings run the gamut from fictional narratives to theoretical
treatises, from political manifestos to constitutions for a new society.
The Manuels have structured five centuries of utopian invention by
identifying successive constellations, groups of thinkers joined by common
social and moral concerns. Within this framework they analyze individual
writings, in the context of the author”s life and of the socio-economic,
religious, and political exigencies of his time. Concentrating on
innovative works, they highlight disjunctures as well as continuities in
utopian thought from the Renaissance through the twentieth century. Witty
and erudite, challenging in its interpretations and provocative in the
questions it poses, the Manuels” anatomy of utopia is an adventure in
ideas.