Utopia
Author: Luxemburg, Rosa
ISBN: 9781839767654
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year first published: 02 Sep 2025
Pages: 384 Format: Paperback / softback
Until the Age of Enlightenment, utopia was a popular literary genre, but without concrete political effects. However, in the decades leading up to 1789, its status gradually changed from an entertaining thought experiment to a socialist project. Imagining the ideal city took on the task of articulating revolutionary transformation of society towards equality and social justice.
In Utopia, Stephanie Roza explores the nascent ideal of a community of property and labour, not yet called communism, and the thinkers who engaged with it in the lead-up to the French Revolution. These philosophers included tienne-Gabriel Morelly, a fierce critic of private property and the mysterious author of the Code de la Nature; the Abbe de Mably, a radical republican and interlocutor of Rousseau; and Gracchus Babeuf, who, from the 1780s onwards, defended the natural right to subsistence and dreamed of a more fraternal world.
Together, they laid the foundations for modern socialist movements. In the crucible of the French Revolution, real equality became the goal of a handful of conspirators gathered around Babeuf, who had meanwhile become the tribune of the people . The Conspiracy of Equals was considered by Marx to be the first active communist party - the hopes and questions that ran through the group prefigured those of the militants of later periods, including today.
ISBN: 9781839767654
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year first published: 02 Sep 2025
Pages: 384 Format: Paperback / softback
Until the Age of Enlightenment, utopia was a popular literary genre, but without concrete political effects. However, in the decades leading up to 1789, its status gradually changed from an entertaining thought experiment to a socialist project. Imagining the ideal city took on the task of articulating revolutionary transformation of society towards equality and social justice.
In Utopia, Stephanie Roza explores the nascent ideal of a community of property and labour, not yet called communism, and the thinkers who engaged with it in the lead-up to the French Revolution. These philosophers included tienne-Gabriel Morelly, a fierce critic of private property and the mysterious author of the Code de la Nature; the Abbe de Mably, a radical republican and interlocutor of Rousseau; and Gracchus Babeuf, who, from the 1780s onwards, defended the natural right to subsistence and dreamed of a more fraternal world.
Together, they laid the foundations for modern socialist movements. In the crucible of the French Revolution, real equality became the goal of a handful of conspirators gathered around Babeuf, who had meanwhile become the tribune of the people . The Conspiracy of Equals was considered by Marx to be the first active communist party - the hopes and questions that ran through the group prefigured those of the militants of later periods, including today.
