A review by amyetherington
Three Early Modern Utopias: Thomas More: Utopia / Francis Bacon: New Atlantis / Henry Neville: The Isle of Pines by Francis Bacon, Henry Neville, Thomas More

3.0

Okay, I actually quite liked this difficult as it was at times to read, but it is interesting to have a perspective of the world put forward by a text written nearly 500 years ago. I'm referring mainly to Thomas More's "Utopia", as it's basically a political account narrated in story form, which tells More's view on what he perceives as the perfect society. He covers everything from warfare to religion, and it was interesting to see how a 16th Century scholar living in the early Renaissance perceived idealism.

Henry Neville's "Isle of Pines" was an easier read with it being shorter and newer (written in 1668), and it covered the same basic principals: laws, rules and regulations, marriage, religion. Utopian fiction tends to curve predominantly towards the use of "wholesome laws", which appear to be the base of what holds a Utopian society together and what makes it such a "paradise".

Looking forward to dissecting this for my Utopias/Dystopias module.