Chasing Utopia, David Leach
Chasing Utopia, David Leach
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Chasing Utopia
The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel

Author: David Leach

Narrator: Richard Clarkin

Unabridged: 11 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: ECW Press

Published: 03/07/2017

Synopsis

Say the word “Israel” today and it sparks images of walls and rockets and a bloody conflict without end. Yet for decades, the symbol of the Jewish State was the noble pioneer draining the swamps and making the deserts bloom: the legendary kibbutznik. So what ever happened to the pioneers’ dream of founding a socialist utopia in the land called Palestine?Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel draws readers into the quest for answers to the defining political conflict of our era. Acclaimed author David Leach revisits his raucous memories of life as a kibbutz volunteer and returns to meet a new generation of Jewish and Arab citizens struggling to forge a better future together. Crisscrossing the nation, Leach chronicles the controversial decline of Israel’s kibbutz movement and witnesses a renaissance of the original vision for a peaceable utopia in unexpected corners of the Promised Land. Chasing Utopia is an entertaining and enlightening portrait of a divided nation where hope persists against the odds.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jason on April 17, 2017

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.) It wasn't until publishing Kevin Haworth's 2012 essay collection Famous Drownings in Literary History that......more

Goodreads review by Logan on December 01, 2021

It was a journalistic overview of kibbutz history and present, really did a very thorough job and can't really imagine doing any better congrats. Anyways i think this book should suffice to conclude my investigation of kibbutz.......more

Goodreads review by Josh on March 27, 2020

I picked up this book expecting it to be a history of the kibbutz movement and an analysis of its future, but it's more a work of narrative journalism. Leach - a former magazine editor and creative writing professor - volunteered on a kibbutz in the 80s and returned to see what had happened in the i......more

Goodreads review by Jen on October 04, 2017

You might think this is a topic you're not interested in, but Leach is a lively, often funny writer, and this is a fascinating, compelling read populated by larger than life characters.......more

Goodreads review by Jan on October 31, 2016

Very interesting book on the meaning of the kibbutz: historically, in the 21st century, and to this gifted author personally.......more

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