History Commons^™

After the First World War, disillusionment is the idea that is most commonly associated with the experience of being a soldier. The romantic ideal of war as a glorious, honourable event, that will turn you into a man is shattered due to the gruesome nature of modern warfare. Or so it is often said. But is it true? Did this feeling of disillusionment start only after the First World War, or are there indications for an earlier start? Is it a country-dependent phenomenon, or one that can be found all over the Western world? And if so, is this feeling …

Trying Home traces the history of the anarchist colony of Home, Washington, from its founding in 1896 on a remote Puget Sound peninsula to its dissolution amid bitter infighting in 1921.

As a practical experiment in anarchism, Home offered its participants a rare degree of freedom and tolerance in the Gilded Age, but the community also became notorious to the outside world for its open rejection of contemporary values. Using a series of linked narratives, Trying Home reveals the stories of the iconoclastic individuals who lived in …