Henri Baudet's Paradise on Earth

"The innumerable utopias and wondrous traveler's tales of the 16th and 17th centuries and later were remarkably consistent in their imagery. Belief in ideal societies where man's original state of bliss is still to all intents and purposes a social reality always involves a small number of recurrent themes which are central to the argument and include criticism of one's own situation. They are, of course, closely related to the ancient theme of a Golden Age, which so many travelers had longed to find in some part of the world. Their feeling that they had been transported back to the Golden Age, "in the beginning", through the utopian, exotic delights of first the Antilles, then the American continent, and finally the Pacific Islands (Bougainville) was due in part to the contrast between these new delights and their native countries, which colored and distorted all observation from the outset. Again and again the shortcomings of their own Western way of life shaped their outlook. The comparative principle formed the basis of accounts of Utopia and of traveler's tales."

Paradise on Earth: Some Thoughts on European Images of Non-European Man, Henri Baudet, p. 34.  [1959; English version, 1965]