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…yet haunted by the future. Buber’s perception of the anarchist and coöperative movements through the advent of Marx and Lenin, are invaluable. However, having just read his epilogue which trumpets the success of kibbutzim, I am sad to see what Buber couldn’t: the dismantling of these collective agrarian movements by urban, individualistic, liberal capitalism of the 1970s.

Still, in a world divided between secular collectivism and religious individualism, Buber offers a clear alternative to both. Even for those who aren’t religious, Buber’s religiosity is conceptual and motivational rather than repressive. We need, though, a Buber for Buber.

There’s definitely something here about nature vs nurture, about determinism vs free will, about open vs closed societies, about science vs tradition. It holds up—save for a few moments about other societies—remarkably well.

Unlike most utopias, Walden Two is set in the present, in an intentional community. It also is openly aware of utopias from Plato and More through Bellamy, Butler, and Morris. Skinner proposes actual experimentation, but allowing for freedom of movement in and out of the community. However, he proposes this society also expand to include all humanity, which hurts that last proposition. Also, Skinner assumes there can be government without power games.

The only negative of this volume that I can count against it is the fact that it leans on plot synopses too much. It DOES bill itself as a Critical Introduction, but I wish it were more critical and less introduction. A good amount of space is devoted to secondary scholarship, but there’s also more than a little that’s left out; it feels like more space is devoted to non-scholarly book reviews; but then why would they be so highlighted in a critical introduction? Still, good exploration of the series as a whole.

Consciously in the shadow of other works—Banks’s Culture, clearly—but with less edge and more fun. It’s well-plotted, but it’s not deep. Fun.