Utopian Societies in Mythology, Religion, Philosophy, and Literature
u·to·pi·a An imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect
Utopia comes from the Greek word, “Eutopia,” which means “not place.” Thomas More created an imaginary island in his book Utopia. More’s utopian society had an ideally perfect social, legal, and political system. Since then, many have tried to create actual utopian societies around the world, few of which exist today. Many writers and thinkers have written about utopias and dystopias—utopias gone wrong. Utopian societies generally do not work because humans, who are not perfect, create them.
Dystopias (utopias gone wrong) in literature
Candide by Voltaire
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
1984 by George Orwell
The Iron Heel by Jack London
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux
The Children of Men by P. D. James
Childhood’s End by Arthur Clarke
Erewhon by Samuel Butler
Lost Horizon by James Hilton
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Utopian societies in religion, myth, and philosophy
The Republic by Plato
The City of God by St. Augustine
Elysium or The Elysian Fields (Greek mythology)
Valhalla (Norse mythology)
The Garden of Eden (Genesis, the Bible)
The Book of Revelation (the Bible)
Heaven (many religions)
Nirvana (Buddhism)
Jannah (Islam)
Paradise (many religions)
Camelot (King Arthur’s realm)
El Dorado (South American “Lost City of Gold”)
Shangri-La (in Tibet; from Lost Horizon by James Hilton)
Gargantua by François Rabelais
The New World (?)
The Land of Cockaigne (medieval Europe)
Schlaraffenland (German)
The Peach Blossom Spring (Chinese)