Communalism: From Its Origins to the Twentieth Century
About this ebook
In this fascinating survey of communalism, Kenneth Rexroth takes readers from its prehistoric beginnings (the “primitive communism” of hunter-gatherer societies and neolithic villages) through the Essenes and early Christians (who “held all things common”), millenarian revolts and apocalyptical sects (Anabaptists, Hutterites, Brethren of the Free Spirit), the Diggers in the English Revolution, nineteenth-century utopian communities (Oneida, Brook Farm, Fourierists), to the countercultural communes of the 1960s. Based on extensive historical research, Rexroth’s narration is enlivened by anecdotes about the foibles and fantasies of the communalists and worldly-wise comments on the factors that led to their successes and failures.
For this new edition, Ken Knabb has added notes, updates, a bibliography, and a new introduction.
Discover more
About the author
Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) spent his teenage years in jazz-age Chicago and hitching around the country. In 1927 he moved to San Francisco, where he played a key role in preparing the ground for the political and cultural ferments of the 1950s and 1960s. Author of more than forty volumes of poetry, essays, social criticism, and translations from seven different languages, he wryly described his main themes as “sex, mysticism, and revolution.”
Ken Knabb (b. 1945) got to know Rexroth in the 1960s and later wrote a book about him. His other books include Public Secrets, The Joy of Revolution and Related Texts, and translations of Guy Debord and the Situationist International.
