Étienne Cabet (1788-1856) was a French radical whose utopian visions led him to found a community called Icaria in the United States.

Etienne Cabet was born on Jan. 1, 1788, in Dijon; his father was a cooper. After an excellent general education he studied medicine, then changed to law. He gained a reputation as a talented and eloquent lawyer in Dijon, but he was known also as an advocate of causes unpopular with the monarchy. By 1825, having lost his privileges in the courts of Dijon, Cabet had moved to Paris.

Cabet's involvement with republican opponents of the Bourbon monarchy grew bolder. He became a director of the Carbonari, a secret revolutionary society which had found its way from Naples into France. He headed an insurrectionary committee during the July Revolution of 1830, which resulted in the abdication of the last Bourbon king. It did not, however, result simply in republicanism...