The word "utopia" was invented in 1516 by Sir Thomas More for his book of the same name. But a utopia seems to draw from two separate Greek notions: a "non-existent place" and a "good place." In today's episode, we consider the confused origins of "utopia," and we consider the word's appearance in the novel Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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Music: Adapted from Sonatine by Maurice Ravel, performed by Irene Posviatovska (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

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