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Communalism: From Its Origins to The Twentieth Century
Kenneth Rexroth, the well-known American poet and critic, presents a study of the history of communes and intentional communities from their known beginnings to the 20th century.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
316 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1974
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About the author
Kenneth Rexroth
203 books110 followersKenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist.
He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider himself to be a Beat poet, and disliked the association, he was dubbed the "Father of the Beats" by Time magazine.
Largely self-educated, Rexroth learned several languages and translated poems from Chinese, French, Spanish, and Japanese. He was among the first poets in the United States to explore traditional Japanese poetic themes and forms.
Rexroth died in Santa Barbara, California, on June 6, 1982. He had spent his final years translating Japanese and Chinese women poets, as well as promoting the work of female poets in America and overseas.
He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider himself to be a Beat poet, and disliked the association, he was dubbed the "Father of the Beats" by Time magazine.
Largely self-educated, Rexroth learned several languages and translated poems from Chinese, French, Spanish, and Japanese. He was among the first poets in the United States to explore traditional Japanese poetic themes and forms.
Rexroth died in Santa Barbara, California, on June 6, 1982. He had spent his final years translating Japanese and Chinese women poets, as well as promoting the work of female poets in America and overseas.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 24, 2024
Runs through case studies of communities that practiced communal living IN THE WEST. There are only examples from Europe, the Middle East and North America. I’m sure there was lots of cases in China and India, for example. But the scope may have been too big, then.
The writing is historical and lucid. I learned that communes tended to be based on Christianity and have group sex, among other things. The epilogue sums up the themes nicely.
The writing is historical and lucid. I learned that communes tended to be based on Christianity and have group sex, among other things. The epilogue sums up the themes nicely.
January 31, 2016
The sections on American communes and 19th century utopian socialism were the most interesting to me. I also find it funny that he scorns then 70s back to the landers as impractical as the failed ventures of this idea such as Robert Owen's New Harmony. The history of medieval religious politics gets a bit much and seemingly off topic at points but I do enjoy a book that attempts to have a huge scope, and from the neolithic village to the hippie commune certainly is.
Quotes:
By not answering the fundamental questions beforehand, by not having a plan for what a new society should be, Marxism has turned out to be not very far removed from "revolution for the hell of it".
Not so long ago an anarchist life style was confined to a tiny minority of self-conscious bohemians and revolutionaries. Bohemianism is the subculture of the alienated. Unknown in previous societies, it grew up with capitalism itself. William Blake and William Godwin and their circles are roughly contemporary with the French Revolution and the onset of the industrial age. It has been said of bohemia that it is a parasitic utopia whose inhabitants live as if the revolution were over; or again, that the bohemian forgoes the necessities of the poor to enjoy the luxuries of the rich. What this simply means is that from the beginning capitalism secreted, as a kind of natural product, a small, slowly growing class of people who flatly rejected its alienation and lack of meaning.
If socialism in one country is doomed to become deformed and crippled, communism in one city is impossible for any length of time. Sooner or later the garrison society will weaken, but the outside world does not.
The Rappites: In 1803, seventeen hundred men, women, and children were settled on the land (north of pittsburgh) on the land and had organized the Harmony Society, at first as a cooperative, but almost immediately as a communist community. The men were mostly hard-working, practical farmers with considerable skills as builders and mechanics. In an extraordinary short time, a little over two years, they had produced a flourishing, almost self-sufficient community. Each family was housed in its own home; there was a church, a school, a grist milll, a large community barn, carpenter and blacksmith shops, a saw mill, a cannery, a woolen mill, a distillery and wine cellar, and five hundred and fifty acres planted in wheat, rye, tobacco, hemp, flax, vineyards, and poppies for sweet oil. Grazing in the uncleared land were cattle, milch cows, pigs, horses, and the first merino sheep in America. Most of their whiskey and brandy they sold, but they drank light wine at each meal.
In the United States, it seemed for a while as though the American dream of a free cooperative society might win.
It is difficult to relate the thousands of groups that call themselves communes that have sprung up all over the world--except in the Communist countries--since the Second World War. Many are not communes at all, but cooperative boarding houses in university towns of the sort which have always existed. Just because their members smoke marijuana and sleep with each other indiscriminately does not make them fundamentally different from the Greek-letter fraternities.
Many contemporary communes, urban and rural, are characterized by disorder, filth, and undone jobs.
"Back to the land" and "contact with Mother Earth" are part of the mystique of most contemporary rural communes, whose members find it more desirable to work hard and inefficiently for small returns than to shift the economic base to crafts or manufacture. To each their own.
Even the most anarchistic, where nobody believes in laws, must at least believe in anarchism.
Quotes:
By not answering the fundamental questions beforehand, by not having a plan for what a new society should be, Marxism has turned out to be not very far removed from "revolution for the hell of it".
Not so long ago an anarchist life style was confined to a tiny minority of self-conscious bohemians and revolutionaries. Bohemianism is the subculture of the alienated. Unknown in previous societies, it grew up with capitalism itself. William Blake and William Godwin and their circles are roughly contemporary with the French Revolution and the onset of the industrial age. It has been said of bohemia that it is a parasitic utopia whose inhabitants live as if the revolution were over; or again, that the bohemian forgoes the necessities of the poor to enjoy the luxuries of the rich. What this simply means is that from the beginning capitalism secreted, as a kind of natural product, a small, slowly growing class of people who flatly rejected its alienation and lack of meaning.
If socialism in one country is doomed to become deformed and crippled, communism in one city is impossible for any length of time. Sooner or later the garrison society will weaken, but the outside world does not.
The Rappites: In 1803, seventeen hundred men, women, and children were settled on the land (north of pittsburgh) on the land and had organized the Harmony Society, at first as a cooperative, but almost immediately as a communist community. The men were mostly hard-working, practical farmers with considerable skills as builders and mechanics. In an extraordinary short time, a little over two years, they had produced a flourishing, almost self-sufficient community. Each family was housed in its own home; there was a church, a school, a grist milll, a large community barn, carpenter and blacksmith shops, a saw mill, a cannery, a woolen mill, a distillery and wine cellar, and five hundred and fifty acres planted in wheat, rye, tobacco, hemp, flax, vineyards, and poppies for sweet oil. Grazing in the uncleared land were cattle, milch cows, pigs, horses, and the first merino sheep in America. Most of their whiskey and brandy they sold, but they drank light wine at each meal.
In the United States, it seemed for a while as though the American dream of a free cooperative society might win.
It is difficult to relate the thousands of groups that call themselves communes that have sprung up all over the world--except in the Communist countries--since the Second World War. Many are not communes at all, but cooperative boarding houses in university towns of the sort which have always existed. Just because their members smoke marijuana and sleep with each other indiscriminately does not make them fundamentally different from the Greek-letter fraternities.
Many contemporary communes, urban and rural, are characterized by disorder, filth, and undone jobs.
"Back to the land" and "contact with Mother Earth" are part of the mystique of most contemporary rural communes, whose members find it more desirable to work hard and inefficiently for small returns than to shift the economic base to crafts or manufacture. To each their own.
Even the most anarchistic, where nobody believes in laws, must at least believe in anarchism.
July 15, 2012
I am giving this book four stars because when it is good and insightful, damn is it good and insightful. So there are plenty of obvious strengths in the text. However, I feel almost bad for giving it such a high rating due to its limitations and omissions…
From communists to anarchists to various religious millenarians and everything in between there have always been strains throughout history that desire radical transformation of life elements in this world. Some would say this is the driving crux that pushes history and revolution onwards. Yet the true elements of this history are often hidden and obscured. Many folks would say that in these times there is a renewed interest in transforming life elements and making this history evident again. From yes, the Occupy movement, to renewed interest in and terror regarding anarchist elements re-emerging in modern consciousness to texts like Howard Zinn’s ‘A Peoples History’ gaining such credibility and momentum it would seem as if oh, once again the times are a-changing. With that premise Rexroth’s book gives a particular perspective on a particular strategy for living change; the commune.
What might come across as either shocking or completely unsurprising depending on who you are and what you would expect from the book is how western and Christian the orientation of the stories told in the book is. Yet in a way it’s a truly glorious form of Christian. The austere, the heritical, the milinerian, the pacifist, the militant almost always casting a slanty eye towards church authority. Yet for myself, having, like a lot of jaded Midwesterners, been so badly burnt by Christianity in childhood it was a bit tough to see so many hopes and dreams for an alternative society hinge upon the word of Christ, still, Rexroth does an excellent and self-conscious job of redeeming this strain. So that’s all good, however, what bothered me about the book and made it tough to get into at times despite all its compulsively charming qualities is that that tendency comprises pretty much the whole text. Only one scanty chapter tackles Islamic heretics, and the chapter on pre-Bolshivic Russian peasants is as far East as the text goes. Somewhat shocking given Rexroth’s championing of Eastern poetics throughout his time as a writer.
He starts with the so-called Neolithic village, a nice intro to primitive communism and then jumps straight into an unrelenting chronology of weird Christian tendencies. Woman, and what would now be considered people of color pop in and out of the descriptions only occasionally. Also, there are repeated condemnations of so called cranks, idlers, and loafers and even an offhanded and dogmatic condemnation of mad people’s place within communes. Whatever happened to ‘hallelujah im a bum’!?!
So although the subject matter tends to be extremely limited, I would still recommend this book to almost any sort of person interested in any form of life without dominant society’s constant impositions. Rexroth makes it clear that in order to attain such freedom, there will always be shortcomings and pratfalls, and yes, it might not last. However, it is to Rexroth’s credit he never paints these folks as just ‘heroes of resistance’ as is the tendency with a lot of other anarchist stuff that touches on these secret histories. However, he does, with a hint of skepticism and a hint of reverence give credit where credit is due regarding those strains of people he chooses to examine which have fought for the secret history of communism.
From communists to anarchists to various religious millenarians and everything in between there have always been strains throughout history that desire radical transformation of life elements in this world. Some would say this is the driving crux that pushes history and revolution onwards. Yet the true elements of this history are often hidden and obscured. Many folks would say that in these times there is a renewed interest in transforming life elements and making this history evident again. From yes, the Occupy movement, to renewed interest in and terror regarding anarchist elements re-emerging in modern consciousness to texts like Howard Zinn’s ‘A Peoples History’ gaining such credibility and momentum it would seem as if oh, once again the times are a-changing. With that premise Rexroth’s book gives a particular perspective on a particular strategy for living change; the commune.
What might come across as either shocking or completely unsurprising depending on who you are and what you would expect from the book is how western and Christian the orientation of the stories told in the book is. Yet in a way it’s a truly glorious form of Christian. The austere, the heritical, the milinerian, the pacifist, the militant almost always casting a slanty eye towards church authority. Yet for myself, having, like a lot of jaded Midwesterners, been so badly burnt by Christianity in childhood it was a bit tough to see so many hopes and dreams for an alternative society hinge upon the word of Christ, still, Rexroth does an excellent and self-conscious job of redeeming this strain. So that’s all good, however, what bothered me about the book and made it tough to get into at times despite all its compulsively charming qualities is that that tendency comprises pretty much the whole text. Only one scanty chapter tackles Islamic heretics, and the chapter on pre-Bolshivic Russian peasants is as far East as the text goes. Somewhat shocking given Rexroth’s championing of Eastern poetics throughout his time as a writer.
He starts with the so-called Neolithic village, a nice intro to primitive communism and then jumps straight into an unrelenting chronology of weird Christian tendencies. Woman, and what would now be considered people of color pop in and out of the descriptions only occasionally. Also, there are repeated condemnations of so called cranks, idlers, and loafers and even an offhanded and dogmatic condemnation of mad people’s place within communes. Whatever happened to ‘hallelujah im a bum’!?!
So although the subject matter tends to be extremely limited, I would still recommend this book to almost any sort of person interested in any form of life without dominant society’s constant impositions. Rexroth makes it clear that in order to attain such freedom, there will always be shortcomings and pratfalls, and yes, it might not last. However, it is to Rexroth’s credit he never paints these folks as just ‘heroes of resistance’ as is the tendency with a lot of other anarchist stuff that touches on these secret histories. However, he does, with a hint of skepticism and a hint of reverence give credit where credit is due regarding those strains of people he chooses to examine which have fought for the secret history of communism.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews