This is a catalogue for the exhibition of the same name and showcases more than 400 books, manuscripts, drawings, prints, maps, photographs and other original material from the New York Public Library and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. The book explores the long tradition of thought and art that has envisioned the "perfect place".
Preface. Introduction: Utopia, Themes and Variations. I: Before Utopia. Sources and Matrices. The Sources of Utopia: Ancient, Biblical, and Medieval. Traditions: Plato's Atlantis, the True Utopia. II: Other Worlds. The Blossoming of the Utopian Genre, from Thomas More to the Enlightenment. Utopia and the New World, 1500-1700. The City as Intellectual Exercise. Mundus novis and renovatio mundi. Messianic and Utopian Currents in the Indies of Castille. Utopia and the Reformation. Daniel Defoe and the Robinsonade. III: Utopia in History. From Revolutions to the First World War. Utopia and Revolutions. Fin-de-Siecle Landscape against a Background of Ruins. Socialism and Utopia. French Literature and Utopia in the Nineteenth Century. IV: Utopia and Dystopia in the Twentieth Century. Utopia and Anti-Utopia in the Twentieth Century. Communal Movements in the Twentieth Century. Avant-gardes and Utopia in the Twentieth Century. How Does it Look in Utopia?. Utopia and Totalitarianism. Utopia and the Late Twentieth Century. A View from North America. Utopia and the Philosophical Status of Edified Space. Concluding Essays. Symbolic Bankruptcy. Utopia Face to Face with its Representations. Society as Utopia