From utopian experiments with garden cities, to guerrilla gardeners planting on abandoned or misused land, the garden appears to have abundant radical potentialities. Cultural critic George McKay unearths its complex politics, looking at the thorny questions of militarism, gardening, and the fascist right, as well as myriad experiments by those on the left, and concludes that gardens remain a fertile site for political action.

Does utopianism have any place in progressive and radical thinking? What happens to possibilities for empowerment and liberation when the current system becomes the dominant frame of reference? Avery Gordon assesses certain contentions made by Engels, Wallerstein and Marcuse, and elucidates her own understanding of utopia.

Oscar Wilde wrote that "[a] map of the world that does not include Utopia is not even worth glancing at." Yet it's become received wisdom that utopian schemes inevitably lead to totalitarianism. Left critic Russell Jacoby, author of Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age, believes otherwise.