Publications on Utopia and Dystopia in the United Kingdom and Ireland (2016–2017)

In the year 2016, fourteen books regarding utopia were published in the United Kingdom, while none was published in Ireland. Taking the year 2017 into consideration, four titles have been published in the United Kingdom, while none has been published in Ireland so far as well. With this review I aim to see how influential utopia has been as a subject in the United Kingdom and Ireland and how significant the number of publications has been. From what I could see in my research, the most active publisher regarding utopian studies has been Routledge, having published seven of the previously mentioned eighteen U.K. titles. The other titles are dispersed throughout other publishers such as, for example, Cambridge University Press and Bloomsbury.

In order to find these titles, I accessed the websites of the British Library and of the National Library of Ireland, research that resulted in me finding no titles in Ireland. The titles are listed at the end of this review, divided into different groups according to the perspectives offered and the topics dealt with. The text below describes the main titles, trying to provide an idea of the relevance of Thomas More's legacy five hundred years after his masterpiece was published.

Curiously, you will only find a total of two books related to Thomas More's Utopia or More himself. The first one is a revision of a translation of Utopia by Robert M. Adams, edited by George M. Logan and published by Cambridge University Press. The second is a book by Lawrence Wilde, Thomas More's "Utopia": Arguing for Social Justice, where he makes a reappraisal of its significance not just as an ironic and playful fiction but as a serious contribution to social and political thought. Wilde surveys the context from which Utopia emerged and analyzes its key themes—politics, economics, social relations, crime and punishment, war and religion.

On the other hand, the most deeply researched groups of books seem to be on utopian authors (historical approaches to utopia through the ages), on citizenship or the influences of utopia in our society, and a few discussions on the status quo. Another researched topic is that of politics.

In Unbuilt Utopian Cities 1460 to 1900: Reconstructing Their Architecture and Political Philosophy, Tessa Morrison brings together ten utopian works that mark important points in the history and evolution of social and political philosophies. This book reflects not only on the texts and their political philosophy and implications but also on their architecture and how it informs the political philosophy or social agenda that each author intended. All ten authors expressed their theory through concepts of community and utopian architecture, but all featured an architectural solution at the center of their social and political philosophy. Some of the works examined are very well known, such as Tommaso Campanella's Civitas Solis, while others, such as Joseph Michael Gandy's Designs for Cottages, are relatively obscure.

In Peacock and Vine: On William Morris and Mariano Fortuny, A. S. Byatt argues that both designers inspired a new variety of art that is as powerful today as when it was first created. The book thus brings the visions and ideas of Fortuny and Morris to life, evincing the utopian elements of their work.

Regarding literary utopianism, the only title I found was The Racial Horizon of Utopia: Unthinking the Future of Race in Late Twentieth-Century American Utopian Novels, by Edward K. Chan. Race and utopia have been fundamental features of U.S. culture since the origins of the country. However, racial ideology has often contradicted the ideals of social and political equality in the United States. This book surveys conceptions of race in major late twentieth-century U.S. utopian novels from the 1970s to the 1990s. Drawing on feminist theory and critiques of democracy, the author argues that our utopian dreams cannot be furthered unless we come to terms with the phenomenology of race and the impasse of the individual in liberal humanist democracy. As we can see from some of the previous titles, the...