Ideal Cities: Utopianism and the (Un) Built Environment

I wonder sometimes how different the Western world would be if Plato had not existed. The great philosopher has a key role in Ruth Eaton’s beautifully illustrated survey of “more than two millennia of Western attempts to invent the perfect city, cradle of the society”, particularly in inspiring architects and thinkers of the Italian Renaissance, and the founder of the utopian literary tradition, Sir Thomas More.

The author takes a very broad view of her subject, sweeping through time from the quest for an earthy paradise in the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh to recent “counter‐utopian” projects presented by the current...