Utop�a / Utopia

In 1516 Erasmus of Rotterdam published a work by his friend Thomas More. It was a scathing portrait of Renaissance Europe, accompanied, by contrast, by a description of an ideal place: Utopia, a remote island in the New World governed with moderation and where all the inhabitants lived in harmony. What the English humanist conceived as an “entertaining little book” and fantasy, however, ended up far surpassing its narrative framework. That critique of the established social order became a m...