[1] Though part of the major wave utopian and dystopian literature that distinguished the final decades of the nineteenth century,[2][3] Holford's book reverses the normal stance of utopian projection: instead of imagining a better society at a future time or in a far-off place, he supposes that the founding of the United States occurred under different conditions and follows its development forward to a superior society in his own day.

The eighteenth-century freethinker John Fransham (1730–1810) left a posthumous manuscript titled Memorablilia Classica, which contains a piece called "The Code of Aristopia, or Scheme for a Perfect Government.

"[6] Ralph Morton, an early settler in Virginia, discovers a reef made of solid gold.

He cannily uses his wealth to build a planned society called Aristopia (Greek for "the best place"), based on the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, with innovations and adaptations of his own.

Morton welcomes productive refugees from European conflicts — Huguenots, Irish fugitives from Cromwell's wars, and northern Italian and Swiss artisans.