American community : radical experiments in intentional living / Mark S. Ferrara.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ferrara, Mark S., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Communal living--United States--History.

Communal living.

Collective settlements--United States--History.

Collective settlements.

Utopias--United States--History.

Utopias.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (222 pages)

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, Camden ; Newark, New Jersey ; London, England : Rutgers University Press, 2019.

Summary:

Mainstream notions of the “American Dream” usually revolve around the ownership of private property, a house of one’s own. Yet for the past 400 years, a large number of Americans have dared to dream bigger and bolder, choosing to live in intentional communities that pooled resources, and they worked to ensure the well-being of all their members. American Community takes us inside forty of the most interesting intentional communities in the nation’s history, from the colonial era to the present day. You will learn about such little-known experiments in cooperative living as the Icarian communities, which took the utopian ideas expounded in a 1840 French novel and put them into practice, ultimately spreading to five states over fifty years. Plus, it covers more recent communities such as Arizona’s Arcosanti, designed by architect Paolo Soleri as a model for ecologically sustainable living. In this provocative and engaging book, Mark Ferrara guides readers through an array of intentional communities that boldly challenged capitalist economic arrangements in order to attain ideals of harmony, equality, and social justice. By shining a light on these forgotten histories, it shows that far from being foreign concepts, communitarianism and socialism have always been vital parts of the American experience.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Introduction: Community of Goods in the Colonies

1 Revolution and Social Reformation

2 Sleeping Cars, Spiritualism, and Cooperatives

3 Theosophy, Depression, and the New Deal

4 Hippies, Arcology, and Ecovillages

Afterword: The Next Wave

Acknowledgments

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-216) and index.

ISBN:

9781978808249

1978808240

9781978808263

1978808267

OCLC:

1127190427