News from Nowhere

It is pleasant to remember that, in our outrageous and ill-mannered world, we have the potential to create utopian societies, where ephebes and red-cheeked Venii canter around village greens, exchanging flirtatious banter in Latin and Welsh, never once seeking to crush a pockmarked peasant under the......more

- My version of utopia would be to have the time to read all these books I bought. - Or you could develop powers like Johnny 5 - But I am not like Johnny 5. I am so slooow. And I’m running out of shelf space. - Well some people don’t have any shelves at all. So be thankful. - In William Morris’s cutes......more

I first knew of Morris as the greatest bookbinder of the modern age, a master of textile design who single-handedly rediscovered half a dozen dead arts. But he was also a fantasist, contemporary with Dunsany, and a political thinker. My search among the many branching roots of Fantasy lead me to pic......more

So this is an example of "libertarian" socialism, which is opposed to the kind of state-run authoritarian equity proposed by Marx, H.G. Wells, and factions of the contemporary progressive parties of the Americas and Europe. "News from Nowhere" is a reaction to the industrial revolution. Though techno......more

1890’s Communist Utopia… Preamble: --Published 7 years after the passing of Marx (and 6 years before the author’s own passing), this novel by a cultural icon (esp. in poetry) of Victorian Britain is an important work to check off in my meandering tour through utopian novels: i) Socialist/anarcho-syndi......more