The English Utopia

In 1950, Morton moved to his final home—The Old Chapel in Clare, SuffolkSuffolk—which would host various local CPGBCommunist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) events and suit Morton’s rural preferences and historical interests. Here he completed his next major book, The English Utopia (1952). This chapter provides a summary of The English Utopia as it traces the medieval (and ancient) idea of a better world, beginning with the long poem, “The Land of Cokaygne.” The book follows how such hopes were constantly re-thought with the rise and consolidation of bourgeois capitalismCapitalism through to William MorrisMorris, William and expressions of future socialist transformation. The English Utopia ends with a fierce polemic against Fabians and George OrwellOrwell, George (claiming the latter was an anti-utopian and propagandist for the dying bourgeoisie), before promoting the Soviet UnionSoviet Union as beginning the realisation of historic utopian dreams.