Utopia was begun while More was an envoy in the Low Countries in May 1515. More started by writing the introduction and the description of the society which would become the second half of the work and on his return to England he wrote the "dialogue of counsel", completing the work in 1516. In the same year, it was printed in Leuven under Erasmus's editorship and after revisions by More it was printed in Basel in November 1518. It was not until 1551, sixteen years after More's execution, that it was first published in England as an English translation by Ralph Robinson. Gilbert Burnet's translation of 1684 is probably the most commonly cited version.
The reader, following the narrator's shifting attitude from admiration to surprise and finally to contempt, is led to believe that the author is bent on demonstrating the vast inferiority of the Erewhonians to his fellow Englishmen; but it gradually becomes clear that he attributes to Englishmen much of the irrationality and the ingenious equivocations that make the Erewhonians look foolish. The difference is only one of degree. The technique is close to that of Swiftian satire. In some places it is confused and inconsistent, but in other passages it is both clever and devastating, worthy of the master.
A Modern Utopia (1905) by H. G. Wells – An imaginary, progressive utopia on a planetary scale in which the social and technological environment are in continuous improvement, a world state owns all land and power sources, positive compulsion and physical labor have been all but eliminated, general freedom is assured, and an open, voluntary order of "samurai" rules.[27]
England, in the year 1500, was emerging from a century of grim civil wars during which the cultural life of the country had deteriorated to a deplorable state. It was not until 1485 that the civil wars were ended by the victory of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, at Bosworth Field, establishing the Tudor dynasty with the crowning of Henry Tudor as Henry VII. During the next 118 years under the reign of the Tudors, especially through the long reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, England attained the status of a first-rate European power and produced a flourishing culture scarcely equaled in all the history of Western civilization.
Thomas More's Utopia has spurred debate, reflection, and critical thinking since its original publication in the 16th Century. More's fictional island of Utopia provides an exploration of issues that shook him and his contemporaries and continue to be problematic in the modern day; the details of More's utopian society, such as the permissibility of euthanasia and comments on chastity in the priesthood, combine with proposals of coexisting varied religions to put forth a work that incorporates the totality of More's religious, sociological, and philosophical talents.
Considerable emphasis is given to scientific experimentation, aimed at improving industry, health, and general living conditions. To that end a great laboratory for the natural sciences is operated, and an exhibition hall of science, industry, and the arts offers educational opportunities through scale models of machinery and mural paintings similar to those in the City of the Sun.
Reviewers of the game praised the visual and auditory art as well as the sense of companionship created by playing with a stranger, calling it a moving and emotional experience, and have since listed it as one of the greatest video games of all time. Journey won several "game of the year" awards and received several other awards and nominations, including a Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media nomination for the 2013 Grammy Awards. A retail "Collector's Edition", including Journey, Thatgamecompany's two previous titles, and additional media, was released in August 2012.
The idea behind the references to the "Golden Age" in the literature of the ancients represents a nostalgic yearning for a kind of life which they imagined was free from the stresses of their more competitive, more commercial civilization. Similarly, the poetic creations of imaginary gardens, the earthly paradises described by Medieval writers, often reflect yearnings growing out of dissatisfaction with things as they are. Another familiar manifestation that took literary form was the pastoral, an idealized representation of simple, happy shepherds. Examples can be found ranging from the eclogues of Theocritus and Virgil to Tasso and Spencer in the Renaissance. In several of Shakespeare's comedies the escape from the city and the court into "the green world" is described in appealing terms. The Duke Senior in As You Like It contrasts his life of exile in the Forest of Arden with the ways of the court in these terms:
There are several religions on the island: moon-worshipers, sun-worshipers, planet-worshipers, ancestor-worshipers and monotheists, but each is tolerant of the others. Only atheists are despised (but allowed) in Utopia, as they are seen as representing a danger to the state: since they do not believe in any punishment or reward after this life, they have no reason to share the communistic life of Utopia, and will break the laws for their own gain. They are not banished, but are encouraged to talk out their erroneous beliefs with the priests until they are convinced of their error. Raphael says that through his teachings Christianity was beginning to take hold in Utopia. The toleration of all other religious ideas is enshrined in a universal prayer all the Utopians recite.
The stress of the project led to the feeling there was not enough time or money to complete everything the team wished to, which added to the stress and caused arguments about the design of the game. The developers ended up reducing the overtime they spent on the project to avoid burning out, though it meant further delays and risked the company running out of money as the game neared completion. In a speech at the 16th annual D.I.C.E. Awards in 2013, Chen admitted that the company had indeed been driven to bankruptcy in the final months of development and that some of the developers had gone unpaid at the time.[10] Hunicke described the solution to finally finishing the game as learning to let go of tensions and ideas that could not make it into the game and be "nice to each other".[8]
In this lecture, Moody will describe the common elements of near-death experiences, as medical doctors in many countries have studied them. Also, he will describe shared death experiences, an identical phenomenon reported by bystanders at the death of some other person. Moody traces debates on these topics back to Plato and Democritus, who argued about whether near-death experiences indicate an afterlife, or just a dying brain. Moody will discuss fascinating new ways of studying such experiences and their relationship to humanity's biggest question: what happens when we die?
One of the few Westerners to interview Osama bin Laden face-to-face, Peter Bergen is a print and television journalist, documentary producer, and the author of four books, three of which were New York Times bestsellers and three of which were named books of the year by the Washington Post. The books have been translated into 20 languages. He is the director of the national security studies program at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C.; a fellow at Fordham University's Center on National Security and CNN's national security analyst. He has held teaching positions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
Pleasantville is a New Line Cinema utopian/dystopian movie from 1998 with Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, and Jeff Daniels. The main protagonist, two teenagers are transported into a black and white TV show called Pleasantville. As they are integrated with the people of Pleasantville community, they slowly brought some new values resulting with red rose growing in this black and white world.
The soundtrack was released as an album on April 10 on iTunes and the PlayStation Network.[33] The album is a collection of the soundtrack's "most important" pieces, arranged by Wintory to stand alone without the context of the player's actions.[28] The album comprises 18 tracks and is over 58 minutes long. It features the voice of Lisbeth Scott for the final track, "I Was Born for This". After its release, the soundtrack reached the top 10 of the iTunes Soundtrack charts in more than 20 countries.[32] It also reached No. 116 on the Billboard sales charts, with over 4000 units sold in its first week after release, the second-highest position of any video game music album to date.[34] The soundtrack was released as a physical album by Sumthing Else Music Works on October 9, 2012.[35] In 2012 Wintory released a download-only album of music on Bandcamp titled Journey Bonus Bundle, which includes variations on themes from Journey and Flow.[36] The soundtrack itself was subsequently released on Bandcamp on June 19, 2013.[37] An album of piano arrangements titled Transfiguration was released on May 1, 2014, on Bandcamp as both a digital and physical album.[38] A two-record vinyl version of the album was released in 2015.[39]
The name Raphael, though, may have been chosen by More to remind his readers of the archangel Raphael who is mentioned in the Book of Tobit (3:17; 5:4, 16; 6:11, 14, 16, 18; also in chs. 7, 8, 9, 11, 12). In that book the angel guides Tobias and later cures his father of his blindness. While Hythlodaeus may suggest his words are not to be trusted, Raphael meaning (in Hebrew) "God has healed" suggests that Raphael may be opening the eyes of the reader to what is true. The suggestion that More may have agreed with the views of Raphael is given weight by the way he dressed; with "his cloak... hanging carelessly about him"; a style which Roger Ascham reports that More himself was wont to adopt. Furthermore, more recent criticism has questioned the reliability of both Gile's annotations and the character of "More" in the text itself. Claims that the book only subverts Utopia and Hythlodaeus are possibly oversimplistic.