Utopia, Ltd.: Ideologies of Social Dreaming in England 1870-1900

Historical Materialism #7

by Matthew Beaumont

This book uncovers the historical preconditions for the explosive revival of utopian literature at the nineteenth-century fin de siècle, and excavates its ideological content. It marks a contribution not only to the literary and cultural history of the late-Victorian period, and to the expanding field of utopian studies, but to the development of a Marxist critique of utopianism. The book is particularly concerned with three kinds of political utopia or anti-utopia, those of 'state socialism', feminism, and anti-communism (the characteristic expression of this last example being the cacotopia). After an extensive contextual account of the politics of utopia in late-nineteenth century England, it devotes a chapter to each of these topics before developing an original reinterpretation of William Morris's seminal Marxist utopia, News from Nowhere.


About the Author
Matthew Beaumont, D. Phil. (2000) in English Literature at the University of Oxford, is Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature at University College London'

Genres: Nonfiction, Utopia

216 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 2005

Reviews

[Karissa Morton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written Historical Materialist explication of the role of the utopia in late 19th century England.