Utopian Visions and the American Dream

Abstract

Utopian narratives express a universal yearning for a better human society in response to each author’s perception of malfunction and malfeasance in his or her own society. The earliest one of which I am aware (other than the legendary folk tale of the Garden of Eden) is Plato’s Republic. I review and comment on selected utopian literature from Plato to the modern American dream and a humanist vision for a global social order. To its authors, utopian visions are not mere wishful thinking, but societal policy declarations that at least in principle can be implemented, if only in part.