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Carey, John: The Faber Book of Utopias

The book is a collection of annotated and abridged extracts from fiction and political theory, all of which deal in some way with the concept of a utopia. The texts are varied, with dates ranging from 1940BC to 1998, including extracts from the Plato's Republic, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, and Barbara Goodwin's Justice By Lottery, among many others. All of the texts discuss how a civilisation can be organised according to some ideological position, generally in order to improve the quality of life for its citizens. However, the book also gives examples of corrupt utopias - a civilisation that is utopian to its rulers, and considered dystopian to its subjects, for example.