Yaacov Oved - Böcker

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.

After World War II, communes and cooperative communities became internationally oriented in their membership and networking began to develop. Unlike earlier such enterprises, these groups shared an openness to international relationships. This was evident both in the groups' social composition, and in the extension of networks beyond their own country. Such globalization opened up the possibility of comparative analysis, which has become a trend in research since the 1950s.The dynamism and speed with which voluntary communities have spread throughout the world is impressive. In the 1950s there were only a few hundred such societies, but by the end of the last century there were thousands. These have taken a variety of forms. There are religious and secular communes, intentional communities, ecological communities, co-housing projects, various types of Christian communities, communities of Eastern religions, and spiritual communities inspired by New Age thought.Yaacov Oved shows that such societies maintain a community based on cooperation and expand their influence through newspapers, television, and the Internet. Their chief characteristic is their openness to the outside world, and their search for a way to move beyond a world of individualism and competitiveness. To accomplish this, they embrace all the tools of the modern world. Oved observes that those who predicted the failure of communes and intentional communities failed to appreciate the extent to which people in today's society aspire to communal life. This book answers the doubters and does so with a sense of deep historical understanding.

This extraordinary history of the Bruderhof shows how its commitment to religion, family, and community has enabled it to maintain its way of life since its inception over ninety years ago. Although Yaacov Oved identifies social tensions in the movement, he still considers it to be a shining example of communal stability.After the horrors of World War I, German adolescents sought new directions in the form of youth movements. Young people from bourgeois families rejected materialism, celebrated nature, and longed for a simpler life. Eberhard and Emmy Arnold, a couple from an affluent background who identified fully with radical pacifist youth circles, fused the German Christian socialist youth into a new movement. They settled a commune in Sannerz known as "The First Bruderhof," whose members shaped their lives according to their faith.The Bruderhof supported itself by publishing, printing, and providing reliable child care services. In 1937, responding to Nazi harassment, and to escape conscription, they fled to Liechtenstein and England where they provided shelter for many Jewish refugees. World War II forced them to emigrate further afield. They went to Paraguay and, eventually, to the United States. Sociologists, theologians, anthropologists, and psychologists alike will find The Witness of the Brothers to be a valuable resource.

After World War II, communes and cooperative communities became internationally oriented in their membership and networking began to develop. Unlike earlier such enterprises, these groups shared an openness to international relationships. This was evident both in the groups' social composition, and in the extension of networks beyond their own country. Such globalization opened up the possibility of comparative analysis, which has become a trend in research since the 1950s.The dynamism and speed with which voluntary communities have spread throughout the world is impressive. In the 1950s there were only a few hundred such societies, but by the end of the last century there were thousands. These have taken a variety of forms. There are religious and secular communes, intentional communities, ecological communities, co-housing projects, various types of Christian communities, communities of Eastern religions, and spiritual communities inspired by New Age thought.Yaacov Oved shows that such societies maintain a community based on cooperation and expand their influence through newspapers, television, and the Internet. Their chief characteristic is their openness to the outside world, and their search for a way to move beyond a world of individualism and competitiveness. To accomplish this, they embrace all the tools of the modern world. Oved observes that those who predicted the failure of communes and intentional communities failed to appreciate the extent to which people in today's society aspire to communal life. This book answers the doubters and does so with a sense of deep historical understanding.

This extraordinary history of the Bruderhof shows how its commitment to religion, family, and community has enabled it to maintain its way of life since its inception over ninety years ago. Although Yaacov Oved identifies social tensions in the movement, he still considers it to be a shining example of communal stability.After the horrors of World War I, German adolescents sought new directions in the form of youth movements. Young people from bourgeois families rejected materialism, celebrated nature, and longed for a simpler life. Eberhard and Emmy Arnold, a couple from an affluent background who identified fully with radical pacifist youth circles, fused the German Christian socialist youth into a new movement. They settled a commune in Sannerz known as "The First Bruderhof," whose members shaped their lives according to their faith.The Bruderhof supported itself by publishing, printing, and providing reliable child care services. In 1937, responding to Nazi harassment, and to escape conscription, they fled to Liechtenstein and England where they provided shelter for many Jewish refugees. World War II forced them to emigrate further afield. They went to Paraguay and, eventually, to the United States. Sociologists, theologians, anthropologists, and psychologists alike will find The Witness of the Brothers to be a valuable resource.

Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) was the most outstanding anarchist thinker of his time. His writings, which combine revolutionary fervor with intellectual rigor, were influential far beyond the bounds of the anarchist movement. No mere propagandist, Kropotkin aimed to provide anarchism with a scientific base through research of dominant tendencies in society. Fields, Factories and Workshops (1899) is a meticulously researched and brilliantly argued outline for redirecting agricultural and industrial production In a world of shrinking resources and increasing human needs. More prophetic than utopian, this volume remains remarkably pertinent to economic conditions at the end of the twentieth century.The analysis of trends at work in the United States, Japan, and China are of amazing predictive power. Kropotkin's farsighted vision of future industrial planning is today being fulfilled on a wide scale in regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Equally prophetic is his critique of mass production in which he anticipates contemporary calls for multifaceted job training and greater flexibility in the workplace. Fields, Factories and Workshops constitutes a valuable source of Inspiration toward the reinvigoration of the moral point of view in the discussion of economics and social justice. It will be of continuing interest to historians, economists, sociologists, and labor studies specialists.