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“Globalization of Communes: 1950-2010”. This piece is a must read for anyone who wants
a comprehensive overview of communes over the past 60 years. Yaakov's article

concludes with the assertion that communal and semi-communal groups are today rising in
number, (a claim that I tried to challenge Yaakov by name in the editorial of C.A.L.L.
#34).

A fellow with too many consonants and not enough vowels in his name, Gyorgy Szell wrote
the next paper. In the list of contributors it states that he has been a visiting professor
at more than 60 universities in 30 countries, and has written over 300 scientific

publications. Still never heard of him. A Wikipedia search took me to the page of a fellow
by the same name who “is widely considered [to be] one of the twentieth century's
greatest conductors”. I don’t know if this is the reason why, but as the only author that

I’d never heard of, his chapter put me to sleep.

The piece by American communal scholar Tim Miller includes sections from an article

recently published in C.A.L.L., in turn taken from Communities magazine, in turn taken
from his paper at the CSA conference in 2010! Phew!

He actually dares to refute some of Yaakov Oved's findings, both when I asked him

about it when I met him this summer, and again in the opening page of his paper.
Community, he says, is on the serious decline.

Miller paints the world as one nightmare catastrophe after
another, and states that “without community our world is simply
falling apart”. Here's another that critiques the ideas of
Communitarianism, labeling it as shallow. He doesn't mention

Etzioni by name, but he doesn't need to, does he? What's missing
from Etzioni's theories is “deep social change in concert with
others”.

One of the most bizarre thoughts to be discovered in this book is Cuddly Tim Miller
Miller's musings on road-rage. Don't ask what the connection is to

st
the communal idea in the 21 century, because I have absolutely no idea, but he reckons
that “more courteous driving [would happen] if the name of each principal driver were
painted onto the car in large graphics”.

He concludes by trying to convince us that communal scholars need communities and how
communities can benefit from communal scholars.

What follows is an article by Warhurst & Trebeck, on the quality of jobs, which seems
to me to be about as out of place as a penguin in the Sahara for a book about communal
living and the communal idea.

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