Based on a study of the commune movement in Britain, this 1976 book is an attempt to explore the ability of sociology to understand the world of the ‘alternative society’ and to examine the implications of the success and failure of communal projects for fundamental sociological theories about the nature of social solidarity and cohesion. It takes issue with a number of studies in this field, particularly those based on American utopian communities. It raises questions about the nature of friendship in capitalist societies and about the extent to which the social scientist can ever really hope to know the world of private life. The book argues that communes face insuperable obstacles in realising their aspirations within capitalist societies and that in the face of these obstacles they tend either to disintegrate or to become as authoritarian and as mystified as the societies from which they are trying to escape.