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Title: Shared Visions, Shared Lives: Communal Living Around the Globe by Bill Metcalf, William James Metcalf ISBN: 1-899171-01-0 Publisher: Findhorn Press Pub. Date: January, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: An inside view of fifteen communities world-wide.
Comment: In this work, Dr. Metcalf adopts a new and refreshing approach, placing the main emphasis on the interior perspectives of his subjects, but without abandoning his academic objectivity. Long-time members of fifteen communities on five continents tell their own stories, responding to a set of questions prepared by Dr. Metcalf. We are given an insider's view of the different motives which inspire people to live in communities, and the various outcomes. The result is a fascinating snapshot of this unusual aspect of human nature as people confront the clash between ideal and reality. Their responses, as they struggle to find a 'modus vivendi', are as different as their original motives. Some of the communities are religious, some spiritual not tied to a creed, and some are secular. Most are rural, but two are urban. In a few, government is paternalistic, but most are democratic, some consensual, yet others an eclectic blend. A few embrace gender roles, others determinedly eschew them. All fifteen are open to the outside world and in that important respect avoid the charge of cultism.

Like the wider world, these communities face ongoing challenges of personality, governance, growth and maturity. Strong personalities may provoke conflict, alternatively the loss of a leader can be devastating. Growth produces bureaucracy which may stifle the inspiration of the community's original ideals. Techniques to resolve conflict and circumvent an arthritic maturity are as essential to the enduring community as they are to a city or country. There is instruction for all of us in the ways these social microcosms meet the challenges. One common feature, often neglected by our wider society, is that they seem to have fun together.

This is a very good book and may deserve a more expensive format to allow better reproduction of the many photographs which illustrate the text. It should be recommended reading, not only for social and political scientists, but for all students of human nature.