Perfect Worlds: Utopian Fiction in China and the West

8vo, br. ed.448pp. Perfect Worlds is an extensive, comparative study of utopian narratives in both the East and the West. Douwe Fokkema provides an elegant argument about the human impulse to imagine new and better worlds, astutely observing that the utopian imagination thrives in the context of secularization. Fokkema also tracks the rise of dystopian narratives, invoking authors as diverse as Margaret Atwood and Lao She, and provides a cogent evaluation of the role of imagined worlds in both Chinese and Euro-American fiction. A shrewd comparison of cultures, as well as a vivid account of cross-cultural influence, this volume is a welcome addition to the scholarly discourse on utopias. Perfect Worlds offers an extensive historical analysis of utopian narratives in the Chinese and Euro-American traditions. This comparative study discusses, among other things, More?s criticism of Plato, the European orientalist search for utopia in China, Wells?s Modern Utopia and his talk with Stalin, Chinese writers constructing their Confucianist utopia, traces of Daoism in Mao Zedong?s utopianism and politics and finally the rise of dystopian writing ? a negative expression of the utopian impulse ? in Europe and America as well as in China.