8 classic Utopian books everyone should read

Encyclopedia Britannica describes ‘utopia’ as “an ideal commonwealth whose inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions. Hence utopian and utopianism are words used to denote visionary reform that tends to be impossibly idealistic.” Going by the mentioned explanation, it could be said that a utopia is an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens.

The term utopia was coined by Sir Thomas More, a 16th century author and renaissance humanist. He borrowed the term from Greek for book ‘Utopia’, describing a fictional island society in the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South America. Utopia translates as “no-place” and literally means any non-existent society. Over the years, many authors have created works that revolve around a utopic place or society. These works always impresses and fascinates the readers and leaves them in deep thought. Here are 8 best classic utopian books that everyone should read.

In this book, More painted a fantastical picture of a distant island where society is perfect and people live in harmony. This influential work was ultimately an attack on More's own corrupt, dangerous times, and on the failings of humanity. It successfully manages to transform the way people see themselves and each other.

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One of the earliest conceptions of a utopia, the book is a philosophical dialogue between Socrates and various Athenians about the meaning of justice and whether a just man is happier than an unjust man. They ponder upon the natures of existing regimes and then propose a series of different, hypothetical cities in comparison. This culminates in Kallipolis, a utopian city-state ruled by a philosopher king.

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It is an incomplete utopian novel by Bacon, wherein he portrayed a vision of the future of human discovery and knowledge, conveying his ambitions and principles for humankind. The novel depicts the creation of a utopian land where "generosity and enlightenment, dignity and splendour, piety and public spirit" are the common qualities of the inhabitants of the mythical Bensalem.

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The book is an autobiography of Robinson Kreutznaer, a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued. The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island.

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The book describes the four voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon at a ship. Few of his voyages take him to utopic societies, where things perfect, yet imperfect. All four voyages bring new perspectives to Gulliver's life and new opportunities for satirizing the ways of England.

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The book revolves around an amateur ornithologist and botanist who falls down a crevice, and wakes up centuries later, in a world where humans live in families, in harmony with each other and animals. But there, reproduction, emotions, and secondary sexual characteristics are repressed, except for the Alpha males and females.

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The book is written from a 19th century perspective and centers on time-traveler Julian West, a young Bostonian who is put into a hypnotic sleep in the late 19th century, and awakens in the year 2000 in a socialist utopia. He discovers a brilliantly realized vision of an ideal future, one that seemed unthinkable in his own century.

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The books paints an isolated society of women who reproduce asexually. This society has established an ideal state that reveres education and is free of war and domination. The story is told from the perspective of Vandyck "Van" Jennings, a student of sociology who, along with two friends, forms an expedition party to explore a rumoured society consisting entirely of women.

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