Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times

"Utopia and Anti- Utopia in Modern Times" by Kumar Krishan gives an indepth overview on what utopia and dystopia is by using various authors, philosphers, and perspectives. Kumar Krishan helps the reader develop a good background on utopianism by showing how different utopias were developed in the western world. Krishan also shows how society was changing and impacted by utopianism over thousands of years. The compendium goes through ancient times to modern times through ancient Greece and Rome, nineteenth-century Europe, and nineteenth-century America to explain the evolution on the ideology behind Utopia. The compendium also gives indepth information on writers from ancient to modern times and their literary works such as Golden Age by Ovid, The Tempest by Shakespeare, Looking backward by Edward Bellamy, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Krishan shows how writers shifted to dystopia's as society become more technogically advanced. The compendium shows how there are many different kinds of Utopias including a Classical Utopia, Christian Utopia, and dystopia. This is an excellent source to see how utopianism evolved over time.

Kumar, Krishan. Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987.