Commitment and community : communes and utopias in sociological perspective
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Commitment and community : communes and utopias in sociological perspective
(A Harvard paperback, HP 36)
Harvard University Press, 1972
- : pbk
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Note
Bibliography: p. [270]-286
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
What makes some communes work, while others fail? Why is it so difficult to put utopian ideals into practice? In this exciting study of the success or failure of nineteenth-century American Utopias and twentieth-century communes, Rosabeth Moss Kanter combines the results of her first-hand experiences in a variety of contemporary groups with her thorough research on earlier Utopian communities. Convinced that the Utopias of the past offer important models for social organization today, the author also stresses the need for a historical perspective in viewing contemporary movements. Kanter analyzes the ideas and values expressed and developed in communal living, she explores the methods of organization that led to commitment and success or failure in the nineteenth-century, and she deals with the dilemmas and problems that contemporary communities present. The final chapters of this brilliant study, a discussion of contemporary communes, allows the reader to see the similarities as well as the differences between nineteenth and twentieth-century communities.
Table of Contents
Part One: The Utopian Faith * A Refuge and a Hope * Society's Maternal Bed: Idealizations of Communal Life Part Two: Lessons of the Past * Commitment: The Problem and the Theory * Live in Love and Union: Commitment Mechanisms in Nineteenth Century Communes * The Comforts of Commitment: Issues in Group Life * Away from Community Part Three: Problems of Today * Retreat from Utopia 8 They Also Serve: Communes with Missions * The Limits of Utopia * Appendix. Sample and Methodology for Study of Nineteenth Century Communes * Bibliography * Notes * Index
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