The Faber Book of Utopias

London: Faber and Faber, 1999. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Gary Isaacs (Cover photograph) and Sally Soames (A. xxvi, 531, [3] pages. Index of Authors. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling and is in a plastic sleeve. An anthology of schemes, stories and ideas which people have dreamt of as Utopia. Provides a picture of the hopes and desires of the age in which each Utopia was conceived. The anthology encompasses many noble and selfless schemes but also reveals a trail of folly, tyranny and attempts at social control. John Carey, FBA, FRSL (born 5 April 1934) is a British literary critic, and post-retirement (2002) emeritus Merton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. He is known for his anti-elitist views on high culture, as expounded in several books. He has twice chaired the Booker Prize committee, in 1982 and 2004, and chaired the judging panel for the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005. He is chief book reviewer for the London Sunday Times and appears in radio and TV programmes including Saturday Review and Newsnight Review. Carey's scholarly work is generally agreed to be of the highest order and greatly influential. Among these productions is his co-edition, with Alastair Fowler, of the Poems of John Milton; John Donne: Life, Mind, and Art, a revolutionary study of Donne's work in the light of his life and family history; and The Violent Effigy: A Study of Dickens's Imagination. Carey's critical works are all distinguished by his fearless acumen and brilliant wit, which have played their part in evoking a sometimes indignant response from other academics. He is known for his anti-elitist views on high culture, as expressed for example in his book What Good Are the Arts? Every age has its utopias, from Plato's Republic to contemporary sci-fi visions. In this spellbinding anthology John Carey charts the course of every conceivable dream world - whether communist, fascist, anarchist, green, golden age, techno-fantastic or hermaphroditic - combining a broad historical sweep with lively variety. An experienced and imaginative anthologist, editor of The Faber Book of Reportage and The Faber Book of Science, Carey has gathered together a vast range of texts from Ancient Egypt to modern California, the authors of which, in different ways, attempt to describe a better world than our own. A utopia typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island society in the New World. However, it may also denote an intentional community. In common parlance, the word or its adjectival form may be used synonymously with "impossible", "far-fetched" or "deluded". Hypothetical utopias focus on—amongst other things—equality, in such categories as economics, government and justice, with the method and structure of proposed implementation varying based on ideology. Lyman Tower Sargent argues that the nature of a utopia is inherently contradictory because societies are not homogeneous and have desires which conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied. The opposite of a utopia is a dystopia or cacotopia. Utopian and dystopian fiction has become a popular literary category. Despite of common parlance, utopianism inspired and was inspired in some areas related to reality, such as architecture, file sharing, social networks, universal basic income, communes, open borders and even pirate bases.