Mark Doyleās Utopian and Dystopian Themes in Tolkienās Legendarium reads Tolkienās work through the history of utopian and dystopian thought. The aim of this new study is not to prove that Tolkien set out to write dystopian fiction or create a blueprint for a utopian society, but that utopian and dystopian societies and settings crucially inform his legendarium. By placing his study outside of its usual fantasy context, Doyle gives us a valuable societally focused and historicized contribution to both Tolkien and utopian studies respectively, yet one occasionally marred by the authorās own unexamined value judgments.The book examines several aspects of Tolkienās legendarium, from its utopian and dystopian literary roots, to the influence of historical religious thinking and contemporary political movements on its formation. Other chapters place Tolkienās utopian and dystopian writing in the context or the history of the environmental movement and, less successfully, the influence of myth on the legendarium. The text concludes with a short epilogue looking at how twenty-first-century computer-game and film adaptations of Tolkienās work have mostly failed to successfully invoke the moral spirit of Tolkienās world.Tolkienās dystopian settings, such as Mordor and Isengard, have been widely culturally mapped. For instance, many have traced the industrial hellscape Saruman creates back to the Birmingham mills of Tolkienās childhood. It is, therefore, in Doyleās exploration of Tolkienās utopian settings and ideals that this book is most insightful and original. He demonstrates how it is not in perfectly organized societies that we discover Tolkienās utopianism, but in the moral universe he forms: āhis works provide readers with a sense of meaning, rather than relieving them of struggleā (2). Studying Tolkien in the context of contemporary political thinking, for instance, allows the reader to rethink the Shire through the Distributionists movement. This was a Catholic social movement of the early twentieth century that valued property rights in terms of human dignity, as well as smaller government, whilst being against the accumulation of wealth. This speaks not only to the social structure of the Hobbits, but also the spirit of abnegation that infuses the legendarium in general; its heroes are often at their most heroic when choosing to relinquish power or wealth. Doyle reads this abnegation at the heart of Tolkienās work as part of the influence of medieval and early English myth and literature on Tolkienās utopian beliefs.Doyle also understands that Tolkien was as much influenced by Victorian neo-medieval culture as he was by medieval culture itself. He further suggests that Tolkienās evocation of the past is more than simply nostalgic or reactionary, but a deliberate attempt to connect his readers to utopian ideals that seemed more achievable at an earlier time and were based on an earlier individual relationship with society and the environment. For instance, Doyle argues that part of Tolkienās evocation of a past time is connected to his understanding that there is less of a difference between the medieval Christian and medieval pagan worldviews than there is between the medieval worldview of a sacralized and almost animist world and a modern rational, individualist understanding of the world. For Doyle this springs from how Tolkienās medieval-inflected Catholicism imbued his work spiritually and artistically. Time is also crucial to Tolkienās legendarium in that his āgoodā societies are strongly connected to their own histories. Doyle suggests this speaks to Tolkienās utopian societies not being alienated from the past. There is no āYear Zeroā or revolutionary moment in Tolkienās good places, as we may find in utopian literature or oftentimes in our own real world history of utopian projects.So Doyle brings a fresh mindset to the history of utopian studies in literature particularly, but there are issues with this book. The main problem is Doyleās use of sweeping, often unevidenced, statements that undermine his arguments. An early example: āfantasy is a genre that Tolkien almost single-handedly createdā (4). For Doyle, Tolkienās original use of āepic, romance, and the novel [. . .] make a whole a new genre: that of fantasy literatureā (5). There is no space in this review to list all the writers who may have been quoted as creating fantasy but, suffice to say, there are other antecedents and precursors to the fantasy genre, and other lines we can take back to its origins. One may read Neil Gaimanās Stardust (1999), for instance, and follow it back to Hope Mirrleesās Lud-in-the-Mist (1926) and then back further to Christina Rossettiās Goblin Market (1862) without once scenting Tolkienās epic romance. Another way to challenge Doyleās assertion would be to take his definitions of the genreāepic, romance, and the novelāand locate instead William Morrisās The Well at the Worldās End (1896) as a starting point: a text that contains all these characteristics, and even contains a character called Gandolf!In fairness to Doyle, he is most likely referring to a commercial and cultural understanding of the genre that we can trace to Tolkienās hugely influential Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954ā55). Sweeping, uncontextualized statements such as these, however, tend to weaken his arguments throughout. Further examples include the statement that āmost ancient and contemporary utopias and dystopias appear flat and artificial by comparisonā to Tolkienās creation (43). This is a contention with which readers of Ursula Le Guinās The Dispossessed (1974), or Margaret Atwoodās MaddAddam trilogy (2003ā13), to name but two examples, may take issue. Doyle argues that Tolkienās utopias lack āthe narrowness, authoritarianism, and tedium that characterize most literary utopiasā (5), while his dystopias āhave a disorder about them that makes them seem more plausible than many literary dystopias that seem preternaturally orderedā (5), but his argument fails to appreciate the strength, depth, and variety of contemporary utopian and dystopian literature.This tendency toward sweeping statements is evident in the textās antimodernism: a response to their modern worlds Doyle and Tolkien seem to share. Throughout the text, with variations, Doyle will hold up Tolkienās āMiddle-earth in all its artistic and philosophical grandeurā in comparison to the āsomewhat impoverished and materialistic worldview of most twentieth- and twenty-first-century societyā (9ā10). Certain thinkers, such as Zygmunt Bauman or Roman Guardini, are quoted to provide evidence for our modern spiritual enervation, but usually these opinions are stated as absolute facts. Tolkienās utopias, for instance, āare better than our society in providing the freedom to allow for individual flourishingā (12). Which society is āour societyā is not defined. The opinion that space for individual flourishing is what makes a society better, rather than an end to want or inequality, is again unexamined. An authorās biases are, of course, inherent and inescapable, but more could have been done to acknowledge these factors both explicitly and implicitly in the text.These unexamined biases are compounded by a short but unpleasant section on Tolkien and race (129ā30). As Doyle discusses Tolkienās attitudes toward race in his nonfiction writing, he almost willfully misreads a clearly racist metaphor Tolkien used as a young man. Doyle then goes on to suggest Tolkien was not a racist by referring to Tolkienās stance against anti-Semitism, while ignoring the racialized language, for instance, that Tolkien uses to depict the villains of the Lord of the Rings. Concentrating purely on Tolkienās letters, and without reference to his secondary world, Doyle argues āthere is little evidence that Tolkien harbored racially problematic attitudesā (129). Feeling more like an attempt to prove Tolkien not a racist, rather than an honest examination of the inescapable prejudices found in Tolkienās works, this section did not sit well.At its best, Doyleās Utopian and Dystopian Themes in Tolkienās Legendarium provides sensitive new readings and a fresh approach to both Tolkien and utopian studies. Placing Tolkien within a history of utopian and dystopian writing and thinking will hopefully allow readers to read Middle-earth anew. Doyleās stated aim is that this new framing of Tolkienās world will allow us to reimagine utopian possibilities for our future by re-examining the dreams of another past. For those readers prepared to make allowances for certain critical weaknesses and unacknowledged biases, there is a lot of value to be discovered in this new study. Not least, a reminder that Tolkienās legendarium contains the possibility to ācreate not just alternative worlds but alternative worldviewsā (117).