Kibbutz: Venture In Utopia
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What happens when idealism is tested by the unrelenting demands of daily life? Kibbutz: Venture in Utopia by Melford E. Spiro is a landmark work of anthropological inquiry that chronicles life inside Kiryat Yedidim, a collective Israeli settlement striving to realize the socialist-Zionist dream of communal living. Drawing on intensive fieldwork conducted in the early 1950s, Spiro presents an unflinching portrait of a community that has turned revolutionary ideology into lived practice — examining how its members work, love, raise children, and govern themselves within a radically egalitarian framework. Spiro's methodology is rigorously empirical yet richly humanistic, and his analysis uncovers the profound tensions that arise when utopian aspiration collides with human psychology and social reality. This augmented edition remains a foundational text in cultural anthropology and Israeli studies, illustrating how the kibbutz serves as both a bold social experiment and a mirror reflecting universal questions about freedom, community, and the human condition. Readers who dare to ask whether true utopia is achievable will find no easy answers here — only compellingly honest ones.
Author: Melford E. Spiro
Format: Paperback
Genre: Anthropology
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What happens when idealism is tested by the unrelenting demands of daily life? Kibbutz: Venture in Utopia by Melford E. Spiro is a landmark work of anthropological inquiry that chronicles life inside Kiryat Yedidim, a collective Israeli settlement striving to realize the socialist-Zionist dream of communal living. Drawing on intensive fieldwork conducted in the early 1950s, Spiro presents an unflinching portrait of a community that has turned revolutionary ideology into lived practice — examining how its members work, love, raise children, and govern themselves within a radically egalitarian framework. Spiro's methodology is rigorously empirical yet richly humanistic, and his analysis uncovers the profound tensions that arise when utopian aspiration collides with human psychology and social reality. This augmented edition remains a foundational text in cultural anthropology and Israeli studies, illustrating how the kibbutz serves as both a bold social experiment and a mirror reflecting universal questions about freedom, community, and the human condition. Readers who dare to ask whether true utopia is achievable will find no easy answers here — only compellingly honest ones.