From Booklist
Ideal cities, or utopias, have been imagined in dazzling detail by philosophers, poets, architects, social reformers, religious zealots, and artists for more than two millennia, an abiding and ever-evolving vision Eaton cogently surveys in this unique, thought-provoking, and resplendently illustrated history. Utopias, Eaton explains, are most often conceived as panaceas during "times of profound social unrest"; aim for "the greatest collective happiness and harmony"; and tend toward geometrically precise and orderly designs as though mathematical balance can control nature's wildness and humanity's perversity. After presenting her working definition of paradisiacal cities, Eaton ventures forth to conduct elaborate guided tours of various utopias, many inspired by myths or religious texts. She explicates Plato's ideal city; Sforzinda, the first Renaissance utopian proposal; the urban dream of early-sixteenth-century Englishman Thomas More, who coined the term utopia; and so-called new-world utopian playgrounds. As Eaton moves into the machine age, plans for ideal cities (Le Corbusier presides) grow more and more ambitious, extreme, and morbidly entrancing. Eaton's sophisticated, jam-packed interdisciplinary commentary is, frankly, demanding, but well worth the effort. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Booklist
Eaton's sophisticated, jam-packed interdisciplinary commentary is, frankly, demanding, but well worth the effort.

Institute for Urban Design
[A] visual smorgasbord. . . . a monument to the excellence of European book manufacturing [with] a superb text.

Choice, D. Stillman, Emeritus, University of Delaware, March 2003
Beautifully illustrated. Remains a cross between a scholarly study and a sumptuous presentation volume.

Book Description
This vast panorama spans more than two millennia of Western attempts to invent the perfect city, cradle of the ideal society. Embracing not only architecture and town planning but also art, literature, philosophy, and politics, the book takes us through the imaginary environments of a wide variety of fascinating and often controversial movements and figures, including Plato, Filarete, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas More, Thomas Jefferson, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Charles Fourier, Etienne Cabet, Robert Owen, William Morris, Ebenezer Howard, Bruno Taut, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, the European Situationalists, the Japanese Metabolists, Archigram, Superstudio, and many more. The ideal cities in this richly illustrated book exist for the most part in the domain of ideas. Ruth Eaton explores the ability of ideal cities to stimulate reflection and change, and she suggests under what conditions they might continue to exercise their vital function in relation to the urban environment of the future. While it is true that notorious attempts to cross the border into reality have greatly discredited utopianism, it is good to recall—with the famous historian of cities, Lewis Mumford—that "a map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at." 300 illustrations, 250 in color.

About the Author
Ruth Eaton has acted as a freelance curator for numerous international exhibitions, among them "Living Bridges, Inhabited Bridges: Past, Present, and Future" at the Royal Academy in 1996 and "Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World" at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in 2001.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This vast panorama spans more than two millennia of Western attempts to invent the perfect city, cradle of the ideal society. Embracing not only architecture and town planning but also art, literature, philosophy, and politics, the book takes us through the imaginary environments of a wide variety of fascinating and often controversial movements and figures, including Plato, Filarete, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas More, Thomas Jefferson, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Charles Fourier, Etienne Cabet, Robert Owen, William Morris, Ebenezer Howard, Bruno Taut, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, the European Situationalists, the Japanese Metabolists, Archigram, Superstudio, and many more.

The ideal cities in this richly illustrated book exist for the most part in the domain of ideas. Ruth Eaton explores the ability of ideal cities to stimulate reflection and change, and she suggests under what conditions they might continue to exercise their vital function in relation to the urban environment of the future. While it is true that notorious attempts to cross the border into reality have greatly discredited utopianism, it is good to recall—with the famous historian of cities, Lewis Mumford—that "a map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at." 300 illustrations, 250 in color.