Overview

The greatest wave of communal living in American history crested in the tumultuous 1960s era including the early 1970s. To the fascination and amusement of more decorous citizens, hundreds of thousands of mostly young dreamers set out to build a new culture apart from the established society that they believed was on a slippery slope to oblivion. Widely believed by the larger public to be sinks of drug-ridden sexual immorality, the communes variously fascinated and repelled the American people. The intentional communities of the 1960s era were far more diverse than the stereotype of the hippie commune would suggest. A great many of them were religious in basis, stressing spiritual seeking and disciplined lifestyles. Others were founded on secular visions of a better society. Hundreds of them became so stable that they still survive today. This is a survey of the broad sweep of this great social yearning from the first portents of a new type of communitarianism in the early 1960s through the waning of the movement in the mid-1970s. Based on over 500 interviews conducted for the 60s Commune Project, among other sources, it preserves a colourful and vigorous episode in American history.

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9780815606017

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As a historian of both the counterculture and non-mainline spirituality, Miller has a properly broad perspective from which to view U.S. communalism. In this sequel to The Quest for Utopia in 20th-Century America, he examines the communes' brief zenith. But while Miller's surveying skills are, indeed, considerable--his appendixes identify 1600-plus communes extant in 1960-75. . . . Miller has done a great service: there are precious few scholarly treatments of the movement--nearly all the existing material on 1960s communalism was published before 1975. An important acquisition; recommended for academic and theological libraries.-- Library Journal

"As a historian of both the counterculture and non-mainline spirituality, Miller has a properly broad perspective from which to view U.S. communalism. In this sequel to The Quest for Utopia in 20th-Century America, he examines the communes' brief zenith. But while Miller's surveying skills are, indeed, considerable--his appendixes identify 1600-plus communes extant in 1960-75. . . . Miller has done a great service: there are precious few scholarly treatments of the movement--nearly all the existing material on 1960s communalism was published before 1975. An important acquisition; recommended for academic and theological libraries.-- ""Library Journal"""

Author Information

Timothy Miller is a professor of religious studies at the University of Kansas. He has published two earlier books on intentional communities, including The Quest for Utopia in Twentieth-Century America to which this new volume is a successor. He co-directed the 60s Communes Project, an extensive documentation effort that preserved memories and artifacts from the 1960s-era communes.

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