Utopia, storia e politica : a proposito di un recente contributo storiografico

This short essay aims to analyze the contents of a recent study on the relationship between utopia and democracy. After to have illu-strated the historical phases of the concept of utopia, with particular reference to the period of the two English revolutions in seventeenth century, the idea that utopia is the "matrix" of democracy is que-stioned, underlining how the concept of democracy is much more complex and elusive and how utopia represents a very minority strand of the western philosophical-political tradition. [Publisher's text].