Bibliography
Rexroth wanted to include a bibliography in the original edition of this
book, but the publisher apparently nixed the idea. It would probably
have been pretty extensive since he read or at least perused quite a
large number of books in the process of researching it. John Solt, one
of his closest friends during his Santa Barbara years, remembers him
“lugging home stacks of ten or fifteen volumes at a time from the
university library. He put a huge amount of work into Communalism.
He wanted to get it right.”
I have nowhere near Rexroth’s knowledge about all these topics, but here are a few suggested readings for those who may wish to explore further.
* * *
Harold Barclay, People Without Government: An Anthropology of
Anarchism (1982, revised ed. 1998). Presents detailed examples of
how numerous early societies (and a few later ones) functioned without a
significant hierarchical authority.
Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary
Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (1957;
expanded ed. 1970). The most comprehensive general study of these
movements. Note, however, that due to the author’s focus on relating the
more delirious medieval manias to modern totalitarian movements,
portions of the book are devoted to things such as flagellant sects and
anti-Jewish pogroms that have nothing to do with communalism. (Debord
critiques the book’s conclusion in The Society of the Spectacle
#138.)
Raoul Vaneigem, The Movement of the Free Spirit (1986). A
“fiercely partisan” presentation of the Brethren of the Free Spirit and
other radical medieval currents. Vaneigem provides a lot of interesting
information on these movements, but he tends to project his own views
onto them.
Christopher Hill, The World Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the
English Revolution (1972). An excellent examination of the Diggers,
Levellers, Ranters, Quakers, and other radical currents, 1640-1660. Hill
wrote many other interesting books on the same period.
Gerrard Winstanley, The Law of Freedom and Other Writings (1973,
ed. Christopher Hill). Key works by the great Digger visionary.
Victor Peters, All Things Common: The Hutterian Way of Life
(1965). Examines both the original Hutterites in the Radical Reformation
and their modern communities in Canada and the Dakotas.
Charles Fourier, The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected
Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction (1971, ed. Jonathan
Beecher & Richard Bienvenu). A comprehensive anthology of this extremely
inventive visionary, whose marvelous though rather loony utopia was
based on encouraging the interplay, rather than the repression, of the
variety of human passions.
Charles Fourier, Harmonian Man: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier
(1971, ed. Mark Poster). Another similar anthology. Take your pick.
Sterling F. Delano, Brook Farm: The Dark Side of Utopia (2004).
The most detailed and comprehensive book on Brook Farm. Despite the
melodramatic subtitle, there is nothing particularly ominous about the
author’s findings, merely the typical sorts of misjudgments and
naïvenesses found in many other utopian communities.
Spencer Klaw, Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community
(1993). An informative account of one of the most original and most
long-lived intentional communities, including its unique practices of
“complex marriage” and “male continence.”
Ellen Wayland-Smith, Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-Set
Table (2016). Another interesting account. This one, by a descendant
of Oneida founder John Humphrey Noyes, also recounts the community’s
later transition into a joint-stock company that became one of the
world’s leading silverware manufacturers.
Mark Holloway, Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America,
1680-1880 (1951; revised 1966). More detailed descriptions of the
communities Rexroth discusses, as well as some others that he doesn’t
mention.
Frederick Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880).
Contrasts the utopian visions of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier,
and Robert Owen with the “scientific socialism” developed by Marx and
Engels. (Debord nuances Engels’s perspective in The Society of the
Spectacle #83.)
William Morris, News from Nowhere (1891). A charmingly low-key
and leisurely utopia by the great designer and social critic.
Burnett Bolloten, The Spanish Revolution: The Left and the Struggle
for Power during the Civil War (1979). The most accurate and
comprehensive account of this pivotal moment in history.
Sam Dolgoff (ed.), The Anarchist Collectives: Workers’
Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936-1939 (1990).
Detailed accounts of how these popularly created forms of social
organization actually functioned.
George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (1938). Orwell went to
Spain to fight the fascists, then discovered the anarchist revolution
that was taking place at the same time (and being violently sabotaged by
the Stalinists).
Marie Louise Berneri, Journey Through Utopia: A Critical Assessment
of Imagined Worlds in Western Literature (1949). The best book on
this topic. The expanded PM Press edition (2019) also discusses the many
newer utopian writings that have appeared since 1949.
Paul and Percival Goodman, Communitas: Ways of Livelihood and Means
of Life (1960). A lively and profusely illustrated vision of three
very different ways that urban communities could be radically redesigned
and transformed.
Gary Snyder, Earth House Hold (1969). Snyder’s remarks on the hip
counterculture’s connections with past communalist traditions complement
some of Rexroth’s observations in the present book.
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed (1974). An “ambiguous utopia”
by the great science-fiction and fantasy writer.
Ken Knabb, The Joy of Revolution and Related Texts (PM Press,
2026). Chapter 4 presents what I think is a realistically flexible
utopia, with speculations on how a postrevolutionary global network of
culturally diverse liberated communities might work. Chapters 1-3
examine the pros and cons of various ways we might get there.
* * *
If you are new to Rexroth, I particularly recommend these four books (all published by New Directions):
Selected Poems (edited by Bradford Morrow, 1984)
World Outside the Window: Selected Essays (edited by Bradford Morrow, 1987)
Classics Revisited (1969; reprinted with an afterword by Bradford Morrow, 1986)
An Autobiographical Novel (1964; expanded edition edited by Linda Hamalian, 1991)
For selections from these and many other works by and about Rexroth, see the Rexroth Archive at www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth.
Ken Knabb’s Bibliography for the new edition of Kenneth Rexroth’s Communalism: From Its Origins to the Twentieth Century (PM Press, 2026).