Communes

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Below are groups and resources (books, articles, websites, etc.) related to this topic. Click on an item’s title to go its resource page with author, publisher, description/abstract and other details, a link to the full text if available, as well as links to related topics in the Subject Index. You can also browse the Title, Author, Subject, Chronological, Dewey, LoC, and Format indexes, or use the Search box.
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Connexions Library

Alternate Societies: A brief survey on intentional community in European history
Moffatt, Gary
Article
1993
A brief outline of the history of attempts in western society to create living arrangements which would complement, and in some cases further, efforts to become economically independent.
Alternate Society: Volume 2, Number 3 - July 1970
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1970
American Commune
Croshere, Mundo Rena (Director)
Film/Video
Sisters Rena and Nadine return to The Farm, the legendary hippie commune in Tennessee where they were raised, to tell the story of their alternative family and the rise and fall of America's largest u...
The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution 1936-1939
Dolgoff, Sam
Book
1974
Examines the experiments in workers' self-management, both urban and rural, which took place in Spain during the revolution and Civil War.
Building Social Change Communities
Training/Action Affinity Group
Book
1979
Skills for creating and maintaining a collective or cooperative group, especially living communities. Excellent, concise chapters on consensus decision making, facilitation and conflict resolution.
A Call to Community
Article
1969
A proposed community.
The Case for Grassroots Archives
Diemer, Ulli
Article
2012
Grassroots archives play a valuable role in what has been called "the battle of memory". People's history projects such as grassroots archives preserve and share stories of resistance, hidden historie...
Commune (intentional community): Connexipedia Article
Article
An intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, work and income.
Commune (socialism): Connexipedia Article
Article
Almost universally, communists, left-wing socialists, anarchists and others have seen the Commune as a model for the liberated society that will come after the masses are liberated from capitalism, a ...
Communes in America: The Place Just Right
Horowitz, Elinor Lander
Book
1972
Traces the history of collective settlements in the United States and compares their organization and purpose with the communes of today.
Communes USA: A Personal Tour
Fairfield, Richard
Book
1972
An account of a variety of communes in the United States.
The Communistic Societies of the United States
Nordhoff, Charles
Book
1875
Describes a dozen Utopian societies.
Communities Directory: A Guide to Cooperative Living
Book
1995
This work lists 540 North American communities and 70 abroad, including contact information and a full self-description.
Community
Moffatt, Gary
Article
1972
The time has come to start a community. The purpose of this article is to explain why and how.
Continuous Excursions: Politics and Personal Life
Colman, Marshall
Book
1982
Colman looks at the idea that 'the personal is political'. He looks at personal life in pre-capitalist societies, the nature of politics and social relations, patriarchy and sexual relations, intimacy...
Co-ops, Communes and Collectives: Experiments In Social Change in the 1960's and 1970's
Case, John; Taylor, Rosemary (Editors)
Book
1979
Contains case studies of alternative organizations and articles addressing issues relevant to how such organizations function. Particularly good is Jane J. Mansbridge's paper, "The Agony of Inequality...
Diggers and Dreamers: The Guide to Communal Living
Coates, Chris; How, Jonathan; Jones, Lee; Morris, William; Wood, Andy (eds.)
Book
1995
Follow the Dirt Road: An Introduction to Intential Communities in the 1990s
Gautheir, Monique
Film/Video
Portrays the successes and struggles of communal life in the United States in the 1990s.
Foundations
Giangrande, Carole
Article
1972
Communes, communism, comradeship -- whatever you wish to call the mood of the young both in and out of communal homes -- will die without an understanding of our foundations, in history, where we have...
Group Sex: Communal Ethics of Eroticism, Free Love, and the Extended Family
Smith, Andy
Article
2000
Is free love a relic of the past? Does principled promiscuity still persist at the dawn of the twenty-first century? Where do anti-authoritarian radicals stand in the cultural combat?
A Guide To Cooperative Alternatives
Freundlich, Paul; Collins, Chris; Wenig, Mikki
Book
1979
Edited by "Communities, Journal of Cooperative Living," this book is a resource guide of ideas, resources, references and contacts for people interested in living and working cooperatively. Includes w...
Icarians: Connexipedia Article
Article
A French utopian movement, founded by Étienne Cabet, who led his followers to America where they established a group of egalitarian communes during the period from 1848 through 1898.
Inside Rochdale
Article
1971
What Rochdale has done is to provide a meeting ground on which those disenchanted with the running of modern society can attempt to work out an alternative environment.
Intentional Communities Upcoming Events
Website
Events for those involved in creating intentional communities.
Intentional community: Connexipedia Article
Article
A planned residential community designed to have a much higher degree of teamwork than other communities.
Karl Marx and the Iroquois: An essay on Marx's Ethnological Notebooks
Rosemont, Franklin
Article
Franklin Rosemont delves into Marx's Ethnological Notebooks and examines their significance and relevance towards today's communist movement.
Kommune Niederkaufungen: Connexipedia Article
Article
One of the largest intentional communities in Germany.
Long Way From Home: The story of the Sixties generation in Canada
Kostash, Myrna
Book
1980
An account of the upheavals and transformations experienced by those who came of age in the 1960s, a time when international currents of change intersected with specifically Canadian events and circum...
Memory as Resistance: Grassroots Archives and the Battle of Memory: Preservation as subversion: Do grassroots archives have a future?
Article
2012
CONNEXIONS and Beit Zatoun are spotlighting grassroots archives this November with an open house and networking event November 24, a talk and discussion November 27, and an exhibit (November 16-27). G...
Out Our Way: Gay & Lesbian Life in Rural Canada
Riordon, Michael
Book
1996
Explores the richly varied life experience of gay and lesbian Canadians living in small towns and rural areas across the country. Travelling 27,000 km and recording more than 300 conversations, the au...
Sexuality and Class Struggle
Reiche, Reimut
Book
1968
A study of sexual issues in the emergence of the extra-parliamentary left in West Germany during the 1960s. Reiche develops a theoretical view of the evolution of sexuality in the West.
'68: The Year of the Barricades
Caute, David
Book
1988
Caute's book looks at the explosive year 1968 (while situating it in the context of what had led up to it). One of the great strengths of this excellent book is that it looks at what was happening aro...
Strange Cults and Utopias of 19th Century America: Original title: History of American Socialisms
Noyes, John Humphrey
Book
1870
Histories of communal experiments and communities in the United States.
Voyages To Utopia: From Monastery to Commune - The Search for the Perfect Society in Modern Times
McCord, William
Book
1989
The story of William McCord's exploration of utopian communities, both in person and through literature.
The Youth Communes
Ald, Roy
Book
1970
A short survey of American youth communes of the late 1960s.

Connexions Directory of Groups & Websites

Bureau of Public Secrets
Articles from a Situationist perspective.
Connexions Archive & Library
The Connexions Archive & Library is Toronto-based project dedicated to keeping alive the rich history of grassroots movements for social justice. Connexions preserves 'alternative' histories that r...
Intentional Communities
Resource for intentional Communities including ecovillages, cohousing, residential land trusts, communes, student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives and other related projects.
Kerista Book Series
Kerista: the commune that invented the word 'polyfidelity' & 'compersion' based in the Haight-Ashbury of San Francisco from 1971-1991.

Sources Experts & Spokespersons

Sources Library

From the Connexions Archives

Bureau of Public Secrets
Website
Articles from a Situationist perspective.
The Communitarian Network
Website
A coalition of individuals and organizations who have come together to shore up the moral, social, and political environment.
Deutschsprachiges Kommunitariernetz
Website
German-language communitarian site.
Intentional Communities
Website
Resource for intentional Communities including ecovillages, cohousing, residential land trusts, communes, student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives and other related projects.