Often we are limited by our own imagination. This book provides counter-narratives to our current societal expectations to help the reader imagine better ways to structure society. 

The first part of this book tries to show that many of the undercurrents in our society (marriage, patriliniality, private property, etc.) arise from a particular historical setting and that alternative worldviews are possible.

The book then describes how people have organized in communal situations, what has worked, and what hasn't. It covers a wide range of topics from the philosophical underpinnings of the founders to American tax law.

Chapters are organized by issue, which allows for one to understand how society can be restructured, but it prevents diving deep into a particular communal situation. Overall, I think the book's structure helps provide for a good overview. 

Most of the examples in the book center around Europe and North America. I would love to have seen more examples from throughout the world. 

While the author did her research and is clearly knowledgeable about the field, she is unapologetically in support of creating an alternative society, even if she recognizes that other structures aren't perfect either.

Given the collapse of capitalist society and the global climate, the author offers neither reform nor revolution but only the option to retreat into intentional communities. Living within the system with recipes from the past that were neither particularly popular nor successful. She’s also a big fan of kibbutzim, the racist pioneer outposts of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Disappointing waste of time.

Everyday Utopia by Kristen Ghodsee--This is a fun, thought-provoking book about our ever-so-human attempts to create utopia and our ever-so-human failures at every turn. Ghodsee reviews two thousand years of communes, collaborative schools, rural and urban experiments, all trying to get at a "better" way of living. While the book is well-researched, much time is spent amplifying the successes of these experiments when it's possible a more edifying book would detail why these attempts didn't work out. Ghodsee is sometimes militantly evangelical in her approach, and she appears convinced that the glorification of the family unit is the primary thing that keeps us one step away from utopia. To that end, she brings up philosophers, revolutionaries, and, yes, cult leaders who have also decried the family unit. I think there's certainly something to what she's saying--what does it mean for the American political system to be focused on winning "middle class/working class families" (even if only in word, not in deed) rather than uplifting everyone through a communal approach? For me, though, I think this book convinced me that a society-level communal utopia isn't possible to strive for. Put another way, maybe the real utopia is the friends we made along the way. Thumbs up.

~In my utopia era~

she really hates the nuclear family lol