Utopia and the Ideal Society
A Study of English Utopian Writing 1516–1700

This book provides a major study for all those working in the fields of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century political and social thought.

J. C. Davis (Author)

9780521275514, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 July 1983

440 pages
22.9 x 15 x 2.8 cm, 0.653 kg

While great interest has been shown recently in the nature of utopian thought and its significance in western development, much of the discussion has been marked by imprecision and generality. This book opens with an attempt to give clarity, substance and precision to the definition of utopia by isolating its characteristics in contrast with those of other forms of ideal society. The value of these distinctions is shown in a detailed re-examination of the sixteenth-century European writers who developed the re-emergent form of utopia. As a whole, the book brings the discussion of utopian thought closer to the mainstream concerns of the history of political ideas, and provides a major study for all those working in the fields of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century political and social thought.

Preface
Introduction
1. Utopia and the ideal society: in search of a definition
2. The re-emergence of utopia: Sir Thomas More
3. The re-emergence of utopia: the European experience 1521–1619
4. Robert Burton and the anatomy of utopia
5. Sir Francis Bacon and the ideal society
6. Samuel Gott's New Jerusalem
7. Gerrard Winstanley and the Restoration of True Magistracy
8. James Harrington's Oceana
9. The Harringtonians
10. Royalism and utopia
11. The full-employment utopia of seventeenth-century England
Conclusion
Bibliographies
Index.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]