Utopia

Sir Thomas More’s entertaining description of Utopia, an island supporting a perfectly organised and happy people, was a best-seller when it first appeared in Latin in 1516.

This work of a Catholic martyr has later been seen as the source of Ana-baptism, Mormonism, and even Communism.

Utopia revolutionised Plato’s classical blueprint of the perfect republic, mainly by its realism. Locating his island in the (then) New World, More endowed it with a language and poetry, and detailed the length of the working day and even the divorce laws. Such precision gives a disturbing and exciting impact to Utopia, which still remains a book of the future.