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2 books match the query 'Commune'

cover of Doctor Jim: A Community, a Commune, and a Clinic in the Oregon Woods

Doctor Jim

A Community, a Commune, and a Clinic in the Oregon Woods

Jim Shames

Oregon State University Press, 2027

In 1973 Jim Shames, a young doctor questioning life in a country divided by the Vietnam War, learned of a counterculture community in Southern Oregon interested in establishing its own medical clinic. A recent graduate from medical school, with limited hands-on experience as a doctor, Jim found the promise and opportunity of a community in the woods, far from the turmoil of the times, appealing. In a leap of faith, he joined the back-to-the-earth movement and became a country doctor. 

In the impoverished Illinois River Valley of Southern Oregon, Shames moved to Takilma and the Mystic Mountain commune. There Shames found a home, family, and fulfilling work at the Takilma People’s Clinic. It was a different world, offering an alternative journey and self-reflection. Surrounded by uninhibited friendliness, joy, and music, Doctor Jim cared for the patients of the community. Collectively the clinic treated rattlesnake bites, gunshot wounds, obstetrical complications, meningitis, cancer, and more for the residents of Southern Oregon.

Doctor Jim offers a window into communal life and the challenges of healthcare in rural Oregon. Shames highlights the struggles and rewards to be found in simple daily activities with like-minded souls sharing emotional and physical work. In reflecting on his unique medical career, Shames teaches that healing is about the intimate interaction between the patient and the doctor rather than medications or procedures. What started as an experiment evolved into a medical practice caring for a broader community beyond its counterculture brethren.

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cover of Insurgent Identities: Class, Community, and Protest in Paris from 1848 to the Commune

Insurgent Identities

Class, Community, and Protest in Paris from 1848 to the Commune

Roger V. Gould

University of Chicago Press, 1995

In this important contribution both to the study of social protest and to French social history, Roger Gould breaks with previous accounts that portray the Paris Commune of 1871 as a continuation of the class struggles of the 1848 Revolution. Focusing on the collective identities framing conflict during these two upheavals and in the intervening period, Gould reveals that while class played a pivotal role in 1848, it was neighborhood solidarity that was the decisive organizing force in 1871.

The difference was due to Baron Haussmann's massive urban renovation projects between 1852 and 1868, which dispersed workers from Paris's center to newly annexed districts on the outskirts of the city. In these areas, residence rather than occupation structured social relations. Drawing on evidence from trail documents, marriage records, reports of police spies, and the popular press, Gould demonstrates that this fundamental rearrangement in the patterns of social life made possible a neighborhood insurgent movement; whereas the insurgents of 1848 fought and died in defense of their status as workers, those in 1871 did so as members of a besieged urban community.

A valuable resource for historians and scholars of social movements, this work shows that collective identities vary with political circumstances but are nevertheless constrained by social networks. Gould extends this argument to make sense of other protest movements and to offer predictions about the dimensions of future social conflict.

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