SOURCE: "More's Utopia" in The Oxford Reformers, 1867. Reprint by AMS Press Inc., 1971, pp. 346-65.

In the following excerpt from his critical study, The Oxford Reformers, Seebohm places Utopia in its political and historical context, contrasting what he believes to be More's ideal commonwealth with "the condition and habits of the European commonwealths of the period."

The point of the Utopia consisted in the contrast presented by its ideal commonwealth to the condition and habits of the European commonwealths of the period. This contrast is most often left to be drawn by the reader from his own knowledge of contemporary politics, and hence the peculiar advantage of the choice by More of such a vehicle for the bold satire it contained. Upon any other hypothesis than that the evils against which its satire was directed were admitted to be real, the romance of Utopia must also be admitted to...