Recently I was fortunate enough to participate in an episode of the BBC Radio 3 debate programme Freethinking, which addressed the 500th anniversary of the publication of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia. I was fortunate to be joined by John Guy, author of many important books on More’s career and two politicians, the History-educated Kwasi Kwartung MP and Gisela Stuart MP. More’s work, composed at the height of the complex Europe-wide movement we know as the Renaissance, was the product of a long engagement with the broad reception of Classical Antiquity, but also his deep and profound friendship with Erasmus, leading figure of Christian humanism, translator and editor of the Greek New Testament, alongside the ancient works of Cicero, Lucian and many others. These humanists recovered the great works of the Greeks and the Romans for the immediate use of Christian society, to provide standards in human virtue, ethical philosophy and models of political and social government...