Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional notes will be found near the end of this ebook.

THE STORY OF UTOPIAS

THE
STORY OF UTOPIAS

IDEAL COMMONWEALTHS
AND
SOCIAL MYTHS

BY
LEWIS MUMFORD

With an Introduction
by
HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON

“_A Map of the World that
does not include Utopia is not
worth even glancing at._...”

GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD.
LONDON CALCUTTA SYDNEY

_Published 1923
by_ GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD.
_39–41 Parker Street, Kingsway, London, W.C.2_

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The first outline of this book dates back ten years; and since then I have woven it and rewoven it in my mind. The actual work of composition was started by a suggestion from Mr. Van Wyck Brooks; and without Mr. Brooks’ encouragement I should perhaps never have begun or carried through the task. The general background of ideas has been heavily colored by my contacts with Professor Patrick Geddes, through his books and by correspondence; and I owe a debt to him I have not always been able to acknowledge in direct reference or in quotation marks. I take the opportunity here to express the hearty gratitude which might otherwise have been conveyed in the more archaic form of a dedication.

In the revision of the MS. I have been blessed with the generous advice and criticism of a number of friends; in particular, Mr. Clarence Britten, Mr. Herbert Feis, Mr. Geroid Robinson, and Miss Sophia Wittenberg, each of whom performed a unique service. To Messrs. Victor Branford and Alexander Farquharson of the Sociological Society of Great Britain I am indebted for many pertinent suggestions. My thanks are also due to the editors of The Freeman for permission to use extracts from two articles: Towards a Humanist Synthesis and Beauty and the Picturesque. Finally, Mr. Hendrik van Loon’s friendly interest calls for a departing beam of gratitude.

LEWIS MUMFORD.

New York City.

CONTENTS

_Introduction by Hendrik Willem van Loon, Ph.D._

CHAPTER ONE

How the will-to-utopia causes men to live in two worlds, and
how, therefore, we re-read the Story of Utopia--the other
half of the Story of Mankind. 9

CHAPTER TWO

How the Greeks lived in a New World, and utopia seemed just
round the corner. How Plato in the Republic is chiefly
concerned with what will hold the ideal city together. 27

CHAPTER THREE

How something happened to utopia between Plato and Sir Thomas
More; and how utopia was discovered again, along with the
New World. 57

CHAPTER FOUR

How the new Humanism of the Renascence brings us within sight
of Christianopolis; and how we have for the first time a
glimpse of a modern utopia. 79

CHAPTER FIVE

How Bacon and Campanella, who have a great reputation as
utopians, are little better than echoes of the men who
went before them. 101

CHAPTER SIX

How something happened in the eighteenth century which made
men “furiously to think,” and how a whole group of
utopias sprang out of the upturned soil of industrialism.
111

CHAPTER SEVEN

How some utopians have thought that a good community rested
at bottom on the right division and use of land; and what
sort of communities these land-animals projected. 131

CHAPTER EIGHT

How Étienne Cabet dreamed of a new Napoleon called Icar, and
a new France called Icaria; and how his utopia, with that
which Edward Bellamy shows us in Looking Backward, gives
us a hint of what machinery might bring us to if the
industrial organization were nationalized. 149

CHAPTER NINE

How William Morris and W. H. Hudson renew the classic
tradition of utopias; and how, finally, Mr. H. G. Wells
sums up and clarifies the utopias of the past, and brings
them into contact with the world of the present. 171

CHAPTER TEN

How the Country House and Coketown became the utopias of the
modern age; and how they made the world over in their
image. 191

CHAPTER ELEVEN

How we reckon up accounts with the one-sided utopias of the
partisans. 235

CHAPTER TWELVE

How the half-worlds must go, and how eutopia may come; and
what we need before we can build Jerusalem in any green
and pleasant land. 265

BIBLIOGRAPHY 309