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A Description Of The Famous Kingdom Of Macaria
''A Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria'' is a work of utopian fiction, published in England in 1641. It carried the name of Samuel Hartlib, who published it, but is now attributed to Gabriel Plattes. A short text of fifteen pages, it reads, according to Amy Boesky, like a political address, and it was explicitly framed as an address to Parliament. It is written as a dialogue, and is in the tradition of the ''Utopia'' of Thomas More — Macaria is an island mentioned in ''Utopia'' — and the ''New Atlantis'' of Francis Bacon. Hugh Trevor-Roper takes it to be an important formulation of the ultimate political ambitions of Hartlib and his followers (and in particular John Dury), in the form of a reformed Christian society and welfare state. It covers the issues of economic development, taxation and education. Much of the content drew on Henry Robinson's ''Englands Safety'' from earlier in the same year.Robert Zaller, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Utopian Fiction
Utopian and dystopian fiction are genres of speculative fiction that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction portrays a setting that agrees with the author's ethos, having various attributes of another reality intended to appeal to readers. Dystopian fiction offers the opposite: the portrayal of a setting that completely disagrees with the author's ethos. Some novels combine both genres, often as a metaphor for the different directions humility can take depending on its choices, ending up with one of two possible futures. Both utopias and dystopias are commonly found in science fiction and other types of speculative fiction. More than 400 utopian works in the English language were published prior to the year 1900, with more than a thousand others appearing during the 20th century. This increase is partially associated with the rise in popularity of genre fiction, science fiction and young adult fiction more generally, but also larger scale social change that broug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Hartlib
Samuel Hartlib or Hartlieb (c. 1600 – 10 March 1662) M. Greengrass, "Hartlib, Samuel (c. 1600–1662)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004 Retrieved 26 April 2016, pay-walled for date of death. was a born, English educational and agricultural reformer of German-Polish origin who settled, married and died in . He was a son of George Hartlib, a |
Gabriel Plattes
Gabriel Plattes (c.1600–1644) was an English writer on agriculture and science, and also now recognised as the author of the utopian work '' Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria'', often attributed to Samuel Hartlib under whose name it was published. Life He was one of the earliest advocates in England of an improved system of husbandry, and devoted time and money to practical experiments. He was in poverty at the end of his life and was supported by Hartlib, to whom he left his unpublished papers. Works His ''Treatise of Husbandry'' (1638) concerns both agriculture and the relations of landlord and tenant. His later tracts mainly repeat under new titles information first published in the ''Treatise''. ''A Discoverie of Infinite Treasure'' was an early work in the fields of chemistry, metallurgy and geology. According to Allen Debus Plattes was heavily influenced by William Gilbert and the theory of magnetism. He wrote on the dowsing rod, colour and mineral compos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amy Boesky
Amy Boesky is an American author and a professor of English at Boston College. Life Born in Detroit, Boesky studied her undergraduate degree at Harvard College before completing a M.Phil in Renaissance English at the University of Oxford. After completing her master's degree and returning to the United States, Boesky worked as an editorial assistant and also began work as one of the principal ghostwriters for the ''Sweet Valley High'' series originated by Francine Pascal. Boesky's first contribution to the series was the sixteenth novel, ''Rags to Riches''; she would go on to write fifty books for the ''Sweet Valley'' franchise while completing a PhD at Harvard University. Boesky finished ghostwriting after earning an assistant professorship. She currently is a professor at Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional island society in the New World. However, it may also denote an intentional community. In common parlance, the word or its adjectival form may be used synonymously with "impossible", "far-fetched" or "deluded". Hypothetical utopias focus on—amongst other things—equality, in such categories as economics, government and justice, with the method and structure of proposed implementation varying based on ideology. Lyman Tower Sargent argues that the nature of a utopia is inherently contradictory because societies are not homogeneous and have desires which conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied. To quote: The opposite of a utopia is a dystopia or cacotopia. Utopian and dystopian fiction has become a popular literary catego ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to May 1532. He wrote ''Utopia'', published in 1516, which describes the political system of an imaginary island state. More opposed the Protestant Reformation, directing polemics against the theology of Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin and William Tyndale. More also opposed Henry VIII's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and executed. On his execution, he was reported to have said: "I die the King's good servant, and God's first". Pope Pius XI canonised More in 1935 as a martyr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Atlantis
''New Atlantis'' is an incomplete utopian novel by Sir Francis Bacon, published posthumously in 1626. It appeared unheralded and tucked into the back of a longer work of natural history, ''Sylva Sylvarum'' (forest of materials). In ''New Atlantis'', Bacon portrayed a vision of the future of human discovery and knowledge, expressing his aspirations and ideals for humankind. The novel depicts the creation of a utopian land where "generosity and enlightenment, dignity and splendour, piety and public spirit" are the commonly held qualities of the inhabitants of the mythical Bensalem. The plan and organisation of his ideal college, Salomon's House (or Solomon's House), envisioned the modern research university in both applied and pure sciences. Publication history ''New Atlantis'' first appeared in the back of ''Sylva sylvarum'', a rather thorny work of natural history that was published by William Rawley, Bacon's secretary, chaplain and amanuensis in 1626. When ''Sylva'' was ente ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both natural philosophy and the scientific method and his works remained influential even in the late stages of the Scientific Revolution. Bacon has been called the father of empiricism. He argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive reasoning and careful observation of events in nature. He believed that science could be achieved by the use of a sceptical and methodical approach whereby scientists aim to avoid misleading themselves. Although his most specific proposals about such a method, the Baconian method, did not have long-lasting influence, the general idea of the importance and possibility of a sceptical methodology makes Bacon one of the later founders of the scientific method. His portion of the method ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Trevor-Roper
Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton (15 January 1914 – 26 January 2003) was an English historian. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Trevor-Roper was a polemicist and essayist on a range of historical topics, but particularly England in the 16th and 17th centuries and Nazi Germany. In the view of John Kenyon, "some of revor-Roper'sshort essays have affected the way we think about the past more than other men's books". This is echoed by Richard Davenport-Hines and Adam Sisman in the introduction to ''One Hundred Letters from Hugh Trevor-Roper'' (2014): "The bulk of his publications is formidable... Some of his essays are of Victorian length. All of them reduce large subjects to their essence. Many of them... have lastingly transformed their fields." On the other hand, his biographer Adam Sisman also writes that "the mark of a great historian is that he writes great books, on the subject which he has made his own. By this exact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dury
John Dury (1596 in Edinburgh – 1680 in Kassel) was a Scottish Calvinist minister and an intellectual of the English Civil War period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism, hoping to succeed when he moved to Kassel in 1661, but he did not accomplish this. He was also a preacher, pamphleteer, and writer. Early life He was the fourth son of the exiled Scottish presbyterian minister Robert Durie; John was brought up in the Netherlands, at Leiden, attending the university there. He was in Cologne, at the Walloon Church, 1624-6, and subsequently at Elbląg (Elbing). He was a close associate of Samuel Hartlib, a native of Elbląg, whom he met there, and shared his interest in education. According to Richard Popkin, another key influence was Joseph Mede, from whom Dury took a method of scriptural interpretation; this interpretation has been challenged by recent research claiming that Dury developed his "Scriptural Analysis" before meeting with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welfare State
A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for citizens unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life. There is substantial variability in the form and trajectory of the welfare state across countries and regions. All welfare states entail some degree of private-public partnerships wherein the administration and delivery of at least some welfare programmes occurs through private entities. Welfare state services are also provided at varying territorial levels of government. Early features of the welfare state, such as public pensions and social insurance, developed from the 1880s onwards in industrializing Western countries. World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II have been characterized as impo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Robinson (writer)
Henry Robinson (c. 1604 – c. 1664) was an English merchant and writer. He is best known for a work on religious toleration, ''Liberty of Conscience'' from 1644. Life He was educated at St John's College, Oxford, and was a freeman of the Mercers' Company. He had travelled in continental Europe as a young man; and he was much influenced by the Dutch example of tolerance and prosperity. A supporter of the Independent line in religion, against the orthodox Presbyterians, he was involved in controversy with William Prynne. In politics he with Henry Parker lent support in 1649 to Parliament in the debate over 'engagement', an oath to be required affirming the legitimacy of the Parliamentary regime. In the same year he was appointed to government administrative positions, dealing with accounts and sale of crown lands, and in 1650 with farm rents and acting as secretary to the excise commissioners. In 1650 he set up as a business, though short-lived, an Office of Addresses and Enc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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