Utopia

Presents the English statesman's classic denunciations of sixteenth-century tyranny and corruption and vision of an ideal society, along with historical and biographical notes.;The Utopian alphabet -- Lines on the island of Utopia -- More's letter to Peter Gilles -- Gilles's letter to Busleiden. In Utopia, More paints a vision of the customs and practices of a distant island, but Utopia means 'no place' and his narrator's name, Hythlodaeus, translates as 'dispenser of nonsense'. This fantastical tale masks what is a serious and subversive analysis of the failings of More's society. Advocating instead a world in which there is religious tolerance, provision for the aged, and state ownership of land, Utopia has been variously claimed as a Catholic tract or an argument for communism andit still invites each generation to make its own interpretation.