Utopias – A Brief History from Ancient Writings to Virtual Communities: Wiley Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion

Segal connects past to present utopianism, from the first utopias in ancient Greece through their flourishing in the Renaissance to the famous "dystopias" of Orwell, Huxley, and Zamyatin in the twentieth century and right up to present-day high tech and virtual utopias.

The book explores the many genres in which utopianism has expressed itself---prophecies and oratory, writings, political movements, world's fairs, physical communities, and cyberspace communities. The book shows that, far from an exclusively Western enterprise, utopias have been worldwide, appearing in regions such as Latin America and Asia. With the current strong interest in utopias, now conceived as cyberspace paradises or as the result of high-tech advances, this book offers a timely appraisal of the joys and pitfalls of utopian thought.