News from Nowhere

This is William Morris’s utopian fantasy imaging an egalitarian, ecological, and pacific future for Britain is a perennial political favourite. It challenges each generation to think ‘how we might live’ without capitalist conflict. This book tackles revolutionary change, human nature, work, gender, manufacturing, architecture, economics, ecology, and the uses of imagination in critical analysis. All topics demonstrate the ongoing importance of William Morris’s vision and provoke responses.

Deeply engaging and bold in its vision, News from Nowhere shows how a truly egalitarian society can work without any centralised power and private property. Seen through the eyes of a socialist who wakes up one day to find himself in such a world, I particularly liked how this departs from usual socialist visions which are dependent on a central state; here, ‘public’ property truly belongs to the public! Written in the 1890s, this book spawned many other utopian writings, but perhaps none matched up to the simple sophistication of Morris’ vision.