Publisher's Synopsis
The two volumes of this work comprise the first comprehensive history of the kibbutz movement in any language. This volume, "Origins and Growth", covers the first 30 years of the story. It begins with the origins of the first kibbutz, in the opening decade of the 20th century, and concludes in 1939, on the eve of World War II. Its main focus is a scholarly analysis of the genesis and expansion of the kibbutzim - the only sizeable group of communal societies to reach a third and fourth generation - and of their relationships with the world around them. The author considers not only the various components of the kibbutz movement but also the pioneering youth movements from which their membership derived. His analysis of the ideological, political, economic, and social development of the kibbutz movement is accompanied throughout by excerpts from historial sources, affording a wealth of insights into the changing quality of kibbutz life as experienced by its members.
