Utopia

Utopia is Thomas More's Latin work, first published in 1516, that combines dialogue with the description of an imagined island society. Discussions of European government and social hardship lead into Raphael Hythloday's account of different arrangements for property, work, education, and public life. The framing voices do not simply agree, and the island's institutions create questions as well as apparent solutions. Irony and the uncertainties of reported travel prevent the book from functioning as a straightforward programme. Its literary form makes political judgment an activity of comparison and argument rather than acceptance of a finished model.