News from Nowhere by William Morris News from Nowhere(1890) is the best-known prose work of William Morris and the only significant English utopia to be written since Thomas More's. The novel describes the encounter between a visitor from the nineteenth century, William Guest, and a decentralized and humane socialist future. Set over a century after a revolutionary upheaval in 1952, these "Chapters from a Utopian Romance" recount his journey across London and up the Thames to Kelmscott Manor, Morris's own country house in Oxfordshire.
As a utopian and socialist masterpiece, "News From Nowhere" by William Morris (one of the most influential thinkers and artists of his time) is a vision of a future free from capitalism, isolation and industrialization. William Morris wrote "News From Nowhere" partly as a reaction to "Looking Backward," Edward Bellamy's industrial utopia. Today, Morris' novel is perhaps more relevant now than ever, offering a prophetic anticipation of the concerns of today's growing environmental and anti-globalization movements. Although some critics see Morris as a backward Luddite, Morris was quick to embrace the innovative Jacquard loom in his own workshops (a programmable punch-card system for automated weaving, and one of the precursors of modern computing). The irony inherent in such a label will not be lost on those familiar with the history of the Luddites. Rather than denouncing technology, "News from Nowhere" sees a world so technologically and socially advanced that it has surpassed any need for industrial technology. Progressive and sustainable technology is woven seamlessly into its idyllic tapestry. Unpolluting, smokeless furnaces provide heat as silently powered barges drift along through Morris' book. Readers who are interested in a serious and profound analysis of our own society and the development of a saner view of the world will find many pertinent insights in "News from Nowhere." Though writing more than a hundred years ago, William Morris provides us with a timely view of an alternative future to that promised by our own society, leading us on as it is towards the brink of ruinous global turmoil.
It is commonly claimed that William Morris' notion of the good or ideal society is uniquely tolerant. This book asks whether Victorian medievalism offered Morris the resources to develop an alternative conception based around the 19th-century preoccupation with the idea of welcome and the complex significance of hospitality.
News from Nowhere (1890), William Morris' most famous work, is a utopian picture of a future communist society, depicting a world in which capitalism has been abolished by a workers' revolution, and in which nature and society have become beautiful habitations for humanity. In an era that has seen the collapse of state socialism, Morris' damning critique of this conception, and his positing of a powerful alternative, are compelling reasons for paying attention to this classic of British socialism.
