When the great social experiments of the 20th century failed, utopian thinking seemed a thing of the past. Yet a renewed interest in social utopias has been rising for some time, in which disillusionment with the political pragmatism dominating the last decades has linked itself to a yearning for fairer, healthier, more ecologically sound and (perhaps) less exhausting forms of life. When it refers to utopias, this subject area means radical conceptions aimed at a comprehensive redesign of society and ways of life that strives to assert an absolute — and latently totalitarian — claim. Yet its researchers are also examining holistically orientated reform movements. A long-term perspective shows that utopias are, on the one hand, doomed to fail and yet, on the other, leave durable traces by impacting social conditions in a lasting way—and that it is precisely this which produces their enduring currency.