I read this after seeing it mentioned in Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman, and thought it would be an interesting read. While it certainly was fascinating, I did not like how the book was written - sort of as a discussion between 2 people, similar to Plato's works but without real conversation happening; just 1 person (the ship captain) doing 98% of the talking and the other saying "tell me more!" or "but what about their military?" etc. Though this is a utopian, the dystopian novels I've read (1984, We, etc) are blended into an engaging story; this book, without a real story, makes it pretty bland.

If anything, it's an interesting portal to what a 1600-era Italian philosopher might dream a perfect world would look like. It's also worthwhile examining the author's life for better context of this book.

I find the line between utopian and dystopian super interesting too - many ideas Campanella thought up here are actually identical to some of the ideas Orwell, Zamyatin and Huxley have in their dystopians as sufferages. Certainly those three had a 300-ish year advantage of historical knowledge and exploration over Campanella, and I'm sure perspective plays a large role in it (imagine if 1984 was written from the perspective of Big Brother or even O'Brien - I wonder if the reader could be deceived of the world Winston suffers?).

Regardless, this book gives many great topics to exercise thoughts on that really get the mind flowing, so I do give it points for that (albeit mostly disagreeable ideas at that).

Yet to read Thomas More's Utopia, but I am a little cautious it will slip into the same shoes as outlined above.