Two Hundred Years of American Communes / Edition 1

by Yaacov Oved

Overview

The United States is the only modern nation in which communes have continuously existed for the past two hundred years. This definitive history of communes in America examines the major factors that have supported the existence and growth of communes throughout American history. The most impressive survey of the communal experience since the works of Noyes and Nordhoff, it is informed by a deep respect for the human subjects and organizational forms of American communes. The findings in the analytical chapters are of considerably theoretical import beyond the historical narrative.Oved details the founding, growth, development, and sometimes failure of alternative societies from 1735 to 1939: Icaria, Ephrata, Oneida, Shaker, religious, secular, and socialist communes. Extensive reference material cited will assure this work a special place in the archives of the literature on communes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560006473
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/30/1987
Series:	Centennial Histories
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	516
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Yaacov Oved has been a member of Kibbutz Palmachim ever since its establishment in 1949. He is professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University’s department of history and a research fellow of Yad Tabenkin. He has engaged in the research of communes throughout the world and has published books and articles on this subject in Hebrew, English, and Spanish. He was one of the founders of the International Communal Studies Association (ICSA) in 1985 and servedas its chairman until 2004.

Table of Contents

1: The Historical Sequence; 1: Communes in the History of the United States; 2: Ephrata and the First Communes in North America; 3: The Shakers: American Religious Communes; 4: Religious Immigrant Communes; 5: Robert Owen and the First Socialist Communes; 6: Fourierist Communitarian Settlements; 7: Oneida: Commune with Complex Marriage; 8: Icaria: The Socialist Immigrant Communes; 9: Victor Considerant and the Fourierists at La Reunion; 10: New Odessa: A Jewish Commune of the Am Olam Group; 11: The Kaweah Cooperative Colony in California; 12: Ruskin: The Communitarian Settlement in Tennessee; 13: Communitarian Settlements and Socialist Parties in Washington State; 14: The Christian Commonwealth in Georgia; 15: Llano de Rio: A Socialist Commune in California and Louisiana; 16: Sunrise and Anarchist Communities; 17: The Hutterites: A Bridge between Past and Present; 2: A Collective Profile in a Comparative Approach; 18: Ideological Principles; 19: Social Activity and Management; 20: Education, Culture, and Rituals; 21: The Family and Women’s Status In the Communes; 22: Economic Assets and Liabilities; 23: Dualistic Relationships with the Outside World; 24: Dissolution of the Communes: Options or Inevitability?; 25: Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

As one who has had firsthand experience of life on a kibbutz, Oved (Tel Aviv University) brings a special angle of vision to this study of communes… Taking into account such factors as ideology, social life, education, culture, rituals, economics, and the role of women and the family, Oved uses the comparative approach to draw a collective profile of American communes.” —R. Muccigrosso, Choice “In modern times voluntary communes have existed continuously for some 250 years in the United States. Yaacov Oved provides an exciting tour of these 250 years of communal experiments as well as a helpful and detailed chronology of communal life in the United States from the early days of the English colonies through the 1920s…. Oved’s monumental work not only provides an introduction to communal activity in North America, but offers a new analytic framework as well, which will serve scholars in a variety of disciplines who are investigating the social and cultural life of communes.” —Donald B. Kraybill, American Anthropologist “The reader knowledgeable about communes will find new insights…. It is well worth a place in the library of any student of communes.” —Ruth Shonle Cavan, Contemporary Sociology

From the Publisher