Utopia (Penguin Classics)

Understanding that it was written at the time of King Henry VIII, I found the style of writing demanding. What we would know as "run-on sentences" and arcane language usage made it difficult. But, I also found it interesting.

This edition of More's Utopia (and Bacon, and Neville), is a valuable volume in one respect: it makes available historic early translations/editions of these three texts. However, this aspect makes it less than desirable for one major intended audience of Oxford Classics: students in college courses. In particular, the 1557 edition of More's Utopia, while a fascinating read from a historical perspective (e.g. the use of "weal-public" alongside synonyms like commonweal, commonwealth, and republic), is simply too difficult and antiquated for most college students to understand and appreciate what is going on in this important text. I'm a college instructor and I ordered this volume because it seemed to offer a good value for all three works. But my students found it MUCH too hard to understand (and I have to admit, the Utopia text was even slow going for me), so I had to post an online version in more contemporary English for them to read, and the week's discussion was hijacked by this problem of the text. Bottom line, if you are looking for a course text that will engage your students, keep shopping, because this edition will only frustrate them (and you, when you have to find another text of Utopia for them to read).

I had been doing some research and by coincidence my roommate told me of this book because It mentioned the god Mithra as being the god of all religions and at the time of king Cyrus after defeating Lydia the first civilization that had real money and a retail system the known world went back to a system of no money and no ownership because god created the world so how could anyone clain ownership to anything everyone had to share everything. The word catholic means universal because mithra was the god of all the religions at the time of king cyrus . Politicians change the history that we know but if you read the history written at the time you can see he probably wrote the book as fictional so it wouldn't be destroyed

The year 2016 is the five century anniversary of this book, though it was originally pubished in Latin. As such, reading a biography of More that includes 'Utopia' commentary is helpful because of the time frame it was written in and the translation that occurred.

I found it interesting the book was published in Belgium and wasn't available in Britain during More's life, Shakespeare wasn't the only writer to deal with censors.

I am glad I read this after Brexit, More is very critical of leagues and alliances as a loss of power to labour. A quick read that surprises you that a man could give such deep and rational thought to a better society that included labor having secret votes for their leadership.

Understanding that it was written at the time of King Henry VIII, I found the style of writing demanding. What we would know as "run-on sentences" and arcane language usage made it difficult. But, I also found it interesting.

This edition of More's Utopia (and Bacon, and Neville), is a valuable volume in one respect: it makes available historic early translations/editions of these three texts. However, this aspect makes it less than desirable for one major intended audience of Oxford Classics: students in college courses. In particular, the 1557 edition of More's Utopia, while a fascinating read from a historical perspective (e.g. the use of "weal-public" alongside synonyms like commonweal, commonwealth, and republic), is simply too difficult and antiquated for most college students to understand and appreciate what is going on in this important text. I'm a college instructor and I ordered this volume because it seemed to offer a good value for all three works. But my students found it MUCH too hard to understand (and I have to admit, the Utopia text was even slow going for me), so I had to post an online version in more contemporary English for them to read, and the week's discussion was hijacked by this problem of the text. Bottom line, if you are looking for a course text that will engage your students, keep shopping, because this edition will only frustrate them (and you, when you have to find another text of Utopia for them to read).

I had been doing some research and by coincidence my roommate told me of this book because It mentioned the god Mithra as being the god of all religions and at the time of king Cyrus after defeating Lydia the first civilization that had real money and a retail system the known world went back to a system of no money and no ownership because god created the world so how could anyone clain ownership to anything everyone had to share everything. The word catholic means universal because mithra was the god of all the religions at the time of king cyrus . Politicians change the history that we know but if you read the history written at the time you can see he probably wrote the book as fictional so it wouldn't be destroyed

The year 2016 is the five century anniversary of this book, though it was originally pubished in Latin. As such, reading a biography of More that includes 'Utopia' commentary is helpful because of the time frame it was written in and the translation that occurred.

I found it interesting the book was published in Belgium and wasn't available in Britain during More's life, Shakespeare wasn't the only writer to deal with censors.

I am glad I read this after Brexit, More is very critical of leagues and alliances as a loss of power to labour. A quick read that surprises you that a man could give such deep and rational thought to a better society that included labor having secret votes for their leadership.

As a work of fiction, this book has provoked serious thought over hundreds of years. The ideas it presents persist as relevant and important even to our day. Anyone with interest in social reform, education, politics, and British literature, among others, should read Utopia.

I enjoyed "Utopia" very much. It is a little slow and involved to start with much background and explanation of the story tellers situation. The reader needs to be patient and not be lost in the details. As the character reveals his experiences in Utopia, and unveils all it's secrets and wonders, the reader will fully be consumed in how wonderful this place could be. It is not difficult to compare the life and ways of Utopia with our present world, and only wish we lived in a Utopian manner. This book is an adventure and will be enjoyed by all. Much in the way of Plato's, "The Republic", Sir Thomas More has shown an idealistic way of life and existence that we can only imagine. This is a fine read.

Reviewing Utopia has no real meaning. Thomas More's defining work has had such a profound impact on western culture that reading it is a duty of anybody wishing to consider themselves educated. Download it for free and enjoy a day of outstanding literature.

Utopia, by Sir Saint Thomas More. I read this work in collage and that was over 40 years ago. Like many such works I was required to read at that time, I must admit that I was not overly enthusiastic about it; simply another of the endless chores I ‘had’ to accomplish if I wanted to complete a particular course which of course I needed in order to graduate. The work seems to be an endless bookshelf filled with works that were...well, boring.

Time passes, things change.

Over the past several years I have taken a trip back in time, so to speak, and revisited many, many works; novels, histories, essays, et al, that I was ‘forced’ to read in school. As an individual who can now be classified as a geezer and well on my way into my dotage, I started wondering just what I had missed due to attitude, immaturity and a vast void of background knowledge. I still lack much of the knowledge I now covet but do feel that I have gained somewhat in maturity and have undergone quite a number of attitude changes.

Ego I added Utopia to my list of books to reread, rethink and reconsider. And I am glad I did and glad I have stared my reread project. I must say I was delighted to find that many to most of the old books I wanted to reread are now available on Kindle and the price of these old classics is most certainly attractive. I have also found that the Kindle is ideal for reading these books as I make much use of the built in dictionaries and I can read these books in doable amounts without having hundreds of other books stacked around my....i.e. they, this one included, has very easy access.

I was rather surprised as to how much of this work has stuck with me throughout the years. I realize that you can have any given 100 people read this work and come up with 100 different opinions of its value. I of course, like many, have now found that many of the opinions and observations of More are just as valid today as they were 400 years ago and find that just as many people disagree or agree with his philosophy as they did when it was written.

Now I am most certainly not going to summarize or comment on More’s teachings...good grief, people have been doing that since the work was published and my ideas; agreements and/or disagreements are of little moment, but I will say that this is one of those books that everyone should read at least once in their lives. I am saddened by the fact that so often students (I was sort of one of them at one time) look upon works such as this as a form of punishment rather than an opportunity to learn and learn to think. On the other hand, for the modern reader, I must admit that the writing style can be a bit of a burden at times. When you have sentences that run an entire page...well, we are not talking Harry Potter here folks.

This was enjoyable for me on several levels and it has helped keep the thinking juices flowing. I am glad it is available to just about everyone now.

Sir Saint Thomas More is obviously and intelligent man but he didn't seem to realize that the people of his utopia don't, and never can, exist. We are not that good. Therefore his idea of a communist state with equality for all won't work.

Any person wishing to reflect on today's world will be more than happy to read this masterpiece.
Open to any age it guides you through an unlimited view of how a society can live when trying to be virtous.

I've read Utopia several times during my life and obtained this electronic edition so I could access it for reference purposes. Thomas More was an intellectual orthodox Catholic executed by Henry VIII for refusing to recognize either Henry's divorce or his break with Rome and establishment of the Anglican Church.

I have always been in the camp of those who see Utopia as a satire to postulate what a society ruled entirely by reason might look like. In modern times, you hear the "Utopian" adjective brandished about in all manner of contexts by people who have never read More's work. The modern dictionary defines Utopian as an ideal state of perfection, but More's Utopia hardly lives up to that ideal from a modern Western Democratic perspective. More's Utopia is an oppressively conformist society which often parallels modern communist ideas. It is a society where freedom of choice, in modern terms, is sacrificed in a trade off for efficiency and order. The crux of this conundrum has always been, who gets to judge what is desirable in the quest for this efficiency and order.

Although written nearly 400 years ago in a very different world than that in which we now live, it addresses social issues with which we continue to struggle.