Food and Power: The Utopian City and Its Countryside

Abstract

From More and Campanella to Gernsback's Ralph 124C 41+, utopian authors have imagined potential agricultural revolutions guaranteeing a secure and abundant supply of high-quality food. Since literary utopias are either based in or modeled on the institution of the city, their demand for food necessitates an increased exploitation of the countryside. Industrialized agriculture remains indispensable even in a future such as Gernsback's, where most foods are apparently synthetic. The "garden city" utopias from Cabet to Gilman equally rely on agricultural intensification, portraying an ideal of "perfect cultivation" that depends on systematic ecocide and environmental remodeling. Their utopian futures anticipate the historical development of global agriculture all too closely. Morris's News from Nowhere stands out for its opposition to industrial farming and to the subordination of the countryside to the rule of the city. Yet Morris's future London continues to import virtually all its food. Finally, consideration of Robinson's Pacific Edge suggests that the challenge of imagining a future for well-fed humanity no longer dependent on rural oppression and environmental destruction remains to be met.