Issue: 2446

Fiction George Orwell, 1984 (New American Library Classics, 1990. ISBN 0451524934, 268pp).

The global, Co-operative Commonweal a long desired dream is now becoming a practical reality: it is a vision of global peace and security, through practical, local and co-active co-operation.

This is not in any way intended to be a definitive statement - more a pointer to some of the more significant developments in the theory and practice of community.

This short workshop is intended to provide an opportunity to investigate our own utopias: "don't dream about your life, live your dreams".

In this experimental article on visions-based on the writings of anarchist Gustav Landauer and the lyrics of 1970s German rock band Ton Steine Scherben - Andreas Speck argues that while visions should guide us, provide us with energy, and stimulate our imaginations, they shouldn't turn us into slaves to our ideals.

Gareth Evans explores the intersection of culture and utopian visions, offering examples and interpretations along the way. Come, see real flowers of this painful world- Basho

The production of nuclear weapons has created plutonium and other radioactive wastes. In any future utopia these will have to be dealt with. Rachel Western argues that finding ways to cope with this legacy, with the care and respect that is needed, could be part of creating a utopia.

More than 350 years ago, Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers called for the total reapportioning of land in the name of the poor, hungry and landless. Andrew Bradstock discusses the Diggers' contemporary relevance for activists today.

Is your utopia a technology-driven super-society or a simple land-based existence, or a combination of the two? Chris Hables Gray argues that we must all choose which technologies we want, so long as our choices don't compromise our freedoms, our communities, or the living nature that we are part of and that sustains us all.

The first Jewish co-operative agricultural settlement was established in Palestine in 1909. The founders of what was to become the kibbutz movement believed they were laying the basis for a new society for the Jews, one based on cooperation, equality and communal living. One of the ideologues of the movement was the philosopher Martin Buber. In his book Paths in Utopia, which remains one of the most powerful critiques of authoritarian socialism, he claimed that this movement was one example of a non-authoritarian, libertarian or "utopian" socialism that had not failed. Uri Davis challenges this understanding of the kibbutz movement and draws parallels with the failure of Buber himself to live by the ethic he endorsed.

Will education be the tool that helps us develop utopias, or will it remain our prison? Caroline Austin talked with "educational heretic" Roland Meighan.

In this interview, which was published in Gandhi's weekly paper Harijan on 28 July 1946, Gandhi spells out his vision of the ideal community and its relationship to the individual

In this interview Lauren Kelley talks with one of the Atlantis community's founders, Jenny James about the aims of the community and how the murder in July 2000 of two young community members at the hands of Colombian paramilitaries has impacted their ideals.

Ecotopias may appear as relatively modern visions, but their origins lie in the ideas and thinking of historic movements. David Pepper examines the journey to modern ecotopias.

Utopia - no place, a never-never land beyond the realm of everyday experience, a dream world that is unattainable, a fantasy vision to which people might like to fly in their dreams and escape the chains of reality.