NEWS FROM NOWHERE by William Morris FULL AUDIOBOOK

Published in 1880, by anarchist and anti-state socialist William Morris, News from Nowhere is a utopian novel, set within a anarchist society of a future Great Britain. In the novel, the narrator, William Guest, falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the Socialist League and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and direct democratic control. In this society there is no monopolies of property, no big cities, no authority, no money, no divorce, no courts, no prisons, and no education system. The largely agrarian society functions because people find pleasure in their work, and have an appreciation for the natural world.

utpMorris describes women in the society as ‘respected as a child bearer and rearer of children desired as a woman, loved as a companion, un-anxious for the future of her children’ and hence possessed of an enhanced 'instinct for maternity'. The sexual division of labour remains intact. Women are not exclusively confined to domestic labour, although the range of work they undertake is narrower than that of man; but domestic labour is seen as something for which women are particularly fitted.Moreover, ‘The men have no longer any opportunity of tyrannising over the women, or the women over the men; both of those took place in old times. The women do what they can do best and what they like best, and the men are neither jealous nor injured by it.’ The practice of women waiting on men at meals is justified on the grounds that, ‘It is a great pleasure to a clever woman to manage a house skilfully, and to do so that all house-mates about her look pleased and are grateful to her. And then you know everybody likes to be ordered about by a pretty woman…’

Table of contents:
00:00:00 01 - Chapter 1, Discussion and Bed
00:06:14 02 - Chapter 2, A Morning Bath
00:23:08 03 - Chapter 3, The Guest House and Breakfast Therein
00:42:29 04 - Chapter 4, A Market By the Way
00:49:06 05 - Chapter 5, Children on the Road
01:03:11 06 - Chapter 6, A Little Shopping
01:18:07 07 - Chapter 7, Trafalgar Square
01:33:28 08 - Chapter 8, An Old Friend
01:41:01 09 - Chapter 9, Concerning Love
02:05:05 10 - Chapter 10, Questions and Answers
02:29:07 11 - Chapter 11, Concerning Government
02:37:48 12 - Chapter 12, Concerning the Arrangement of Life
02:49:12 13 - Chapter 13, Concerning Politics and Chapter 14, How Matters Are Arranged
03:01:12 14 - Chapter 15, On the Lack of Incentive to Labour in a Communist Society 03:19:16 15 - Chapter 16, Dinner in the Hall of Bloomsbury Market
03:27:53 16 - Chapter 17, Part 1, How the Change Came
03:59:05 17 - Chapter 17, Part 2, How the Change Came
04:26:43 18 - Chapter 18, The Beginning of the New Life
04:37:52 19 - Chapter 19, The Drive Back to Hammersmith
04:48:53 20 - Chapter 20, The Hammersmith Guest House Again, and Chapter 21, Going Up the River
04:58:06 21 - Chapter 22, Hampton Court and a Praiser of Past Times
05:18:53 22 - Chapter 23, An Early Morning By Runnymede
05:30:51 23 - Chapter 24, Up the Thames: The Second Day
05:49:23 24 - Chapter 25, The Third Day on the Thames
05:58:22 25 - Chapter 26, The Obstinate Refusers
06:07:31 26 - Chapter 27, The Upper Waters
06:30:05 27 - Chapter 28, The Little River
06:38:27 28 - Chapter 29, A Resting-Place on the Upper Thames
06:48:34 29 - Chapter 30, The Journey's End
07:00:39 30 - Chapter 31, An Old House Amongst New Folk
07:11:29 31 - Chapter 32, The Feast's Beginning - The End