First edition of this influential and extensive study of the communitarian ideal in the United States.

First edition of this influential and extensive study of the communitarian ideal in the United States.

Charles Nordhoff (1830-1901) emigrated to the United States as a child, and went on to have a varied career as sailor, journalist and writer. His grandson Charles Bernard Nordhoff is the famous historian of the Bounty.

In The Communistic Societies of the United States, Nordhoff recounts his travels to many of the socialistic societies which became popular in the nineteenth century, most famously the Shakers of Mount Lebanon, the Rappite township at 'Harmony' and the Oneida Community. As Nordhoff points out in his Introduction, he hoped that a study of these communities might provide 'useful hints toward the solution of the labor question'. Throughout, the work displays a thoroughness and lack of hysteria which supports his claim to have 'thought it best to give at first an impartial and not unfriendly account of each commune.'