40 Years in the Desert

"A decade after James Horrox's pioneering work A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement, Merlin Becskey presents an engaging and well-written case study of a kibbutz trying to realise anarchist principles. Based on field research and interviews at kibbutz Samar, located in Israel's far south, Becskey provides valuable insight into an unlikely project under unlikely circumstances."
— Gabriel Kuhn, editor and translator of All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, Liberating Society from the State and Other Writings by Erich Mühsam, and Revolution and Other Writings by Gustav Landauer

"In Samar, communal organisation and individual desire form a tense bond, worked out every day. It may be the last refuge of the free spirit that animated the earliest Kibbutz groups, where everything depends on people."
— Uri Gordon, author of Anarchy Alive! and Anarchy, State and Revolution

Merlin Becskey is a cultural anthropologist, researcher, and lecturer in civic education living in Berlin, Germany.