Anchored in twenty years of academic and onsite research, Dan McKanan’s Camphill and the Future is a scholarly search for survival for the communal Camphill movement at its eightieth anniversary. Camphill began with a small group of mostly Jewish refugees who escaped after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938. Led by Doctor Karl König, residents began to serve the educational, medical, and social needs of intellectually disabled children on an estate named Camphill near Aberdeen, Scotland. Today, 120 Camphill intentional communities minister to young and adult disabled residents on four continents, ranking them with the Hutterites of North America and the Kibbutzim of Israel among the most successful groups in communal history. McKanan’s purpose is to suggest means, methods, and motivation that could lead Camphill into continued adjustment and vitality.
In penetrating detail, McKanan uses his expertise in theology and communitarianism to trace the history of ideas, events, and...
University of California Press