Utopias: a brief history from ancient writings to virtual communities

1. The nature of utopias. Utopias defined ; Utopias differ from both millenarian movements and science fiction ; Utopias' spiritual qualities are akin to those of formal religions ; Utopias' real goal : not prediction of the future but improvement of the present ; How and when utopias are expected to be established

2. The variety of utopias. The global nature of utopias : utopias are predominantly but not exclusively western ; The several genres of utopianism : prophecies and oratory, political movements, communities, writings, World's Fairs, cyberspace

3. The European utopias and utopians and their critics. The pioneering European visionaries and their basic beliefs : Plato's Republic and More's Utopia ; Forging the connections between science, technology, and utopia ; The pansophists ; The prophets of progress : Condorcet, Saint-Simon, and Comte ; Dissenters from the ideology of unadulterated scientific and technological progress : Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and William Morris ; The expansive visions of Robert Owen and Charles Fourier ; The "scientific" socialism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

4. The American utopias and utopians and their critics. America as utopia : potential and fulfillment ; The pioneering American visionaries and their basic beliefs in America as land of opportunity : John Adolphus Etzler, Thomas Ewbank, and Mary Griffith ; America as "second creation" : enthusiasm and disillusionment

5. Growing expectations of realizing utopia in the United States and Europe. Later American technological utopians : John Macnie through Harold Loeb ; Utopia within sight : the American technocracy crusade ; Utopia within reach : "The best and the brightest" - post-World War II science and technology policy in the United States and western Europe and the triumph of the social sciences ; On misreading Frankenstein : how scientific and technological advances have changed traditional criticisms of utopianism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries

6. Utopia reconsidered. The growing retreat from space exploration and other megaprojects ; Nuclear power : its rise, fall, and possible revival - Maine Yankee as a case study ; The declining belief in inventors, engineers, and scientists as heroes, in experts as unbiased, and in science and technology as social panaceas ; Contemporary prophets for profit : the rise and partial fall of professional forecasters ; Post-colonial critiques of western science and technology as measures of "progress"

7. The resurgence of utopianism. The major contemporary utopians and their basic beliefs ; Social media : utopia at one's fingertips ; Recent and contemporary utopian communities ; The Star Trek empire : science fiction becomes less escapist ; Edutopia : George Lucas and others ; The fate of books and newspapers : utopian and dystopian aspirations

8. The future of utopias and utopianism. The "scientific and technological plateau" and the redefinition of progress

Conclusion: Why utopia still matters today and tomorrow.