4 h 51 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 119 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 119 pagesAbout this book
What if a fairer society begins by giving up everything you call your own?
In Thomas More’s Utopia, a conversation with the traveler Raphael Hythloday opens up unsettling questions about England. Why hang thieves while poor farmers lose their livelihoods? Can a wise adviser help a king? The first part asks whether harsh laws can ever cure the troubles that drive people to crime.
In the second part, Hythloday describes an island where property is shared and people work, eat and learn together. Families take what they need without paying. Yet this ordered society also has a harder side: war and slavery sit beside its promises of justice. More leaves readers debating just what kind of ideal this is.
What you’ll discover
- A traveler with challenging ideas Meet Raphael Hythloday, whose account of distant societies challenges familiar ideas about life at home.
- Justice beyond harsh punishment Consider why punishing theft may miss the poverty that helps cause it.
- Life without private property Explore shared markets, common goods and a daily life where money no longer rules.
- An ideal with hard edges Weigh the island’s shared life against its troubling place for war and slavery.
- A name with two meanings Discover how good place and no place keep the book’s central question open.
Is it for you?
This book suits readers who like big questions about money, justice and power, and anyone curious where the word utopia comes from. It may be less suited to those who want a plot with a hero, since most of it is talk and description.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A stranger's tale frames the whole book
- Hanging thieves does not cure theft
- Sheep and idle lords drive the poor
- A wise man may not fit a court
- Private property stands in the way of justice
- Utopia's cities share work and daily life
- Gold means little where all have enough
- Order, war and slavery have a harder side
- Faith is free, and readers still disagree
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- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Philosophy & IdeasFree to read
Utopia
by Thomas More· 1516
A traveler describes an island society without private property.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 9
A stranger's tale frames the whole book
The book opens with More as a character. He is sent on a diplomatic mission to Flanders, in what is now Belgium, on behalf of King Henry the Eighth. While he waits for talks to resume, he stays in Antwerp, where his friend Peter Giles lives. Both men are real people, and More uses their real names to give the story a feel of fact.
One day after church, Giles introduces More to a weathered, bearded man named Raphael Hythloday. Hythloday is a Portuguese sailor and a scholar of Greek. He traveled with Amerigo Vespucci on voyages to the New World, but he chose to stay behind in distant lands rather than come home. The name Hythloday, from Greek, hints at someone who sells nonsense, and so a careful reader is warned to smile.
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The author
Thomas More
1478–1535 · English statesman and philosopher
Thomas More was born in London in 1478 and lived in England. He was a lawyer and served as lord chancellor from 1529 to 1532. He wrote Utopia in 1516 and A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation in 1534. He was executed in London in 1535.
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What is Utopia by Thomas More about?
It is a conversation about how to run a society. A traveler describes an island where property is shared, work is equal, and people live by reason, and the talk compares it with the troubles of More's England.
What does the word utopia mean?
More made it from Greek. It can mean no place or good place, because the two Greek roots sound almost alike. The pun hints that the perfect society may be a dream, or a goal worth seeking.
Who is Raphael Hythloday in Utopia?
He is the fictional traveler who tells of the island. He is a sailor and scholar who sailed with Amerigo Vespucci. His name, from Greek, suggests a talker of nonsense, which adds a playful doubt.
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