Longing for Arcadia

About the Book

Longing for Arcadia expresses the life long hope and largely unsuccessful search of the author for a tranquil, free and rural land. First, he discovered agriculture, which was not the answer. Then anarchism seemed to be the resolution of the matter. This was the anarchist society built upon mutual aid and voluntary cooperation. Soon, he confessed that while the anarchist critique of society was the most convincing of all, the chances of achieving and maintaining such a society were unlikely. Next he encountered anthropology and made it his life career. While anthropology was also inadequate, he felt at least it served as a bulwark against ethnocentrism and it unveiled the immense variety of human cultures, demonstrating that such entities as capitalism and government did not need to be inevitable and immutable elements of all human society.

His widespread world travels initially put him in Egypt and the Sudan, where for more than three years he taught and did field studies of the contemporary population. For over thirty years the author taught at universities in the United States and Canada. During this time he undertook numerous journeys, especially especially through Europe and the Middle East, wrote several books and raised a family. Retired from the University of Alberta in 1989, he eventually moved to Vernon, British Columbia, where he continues to write, to garden and to ride his old horse, Coral.

Scattered throughout the book are numerous observations and provocative comments on a multitude of topics, including philosophy, religion, politics, economics, social organization and agriculture.

The author has dubbed himself and anarcho-cynicalist in part after the ancient Cynics, who undertook a radical critique of society and seemed to be advocating something like a fee or anarchist society.

About the Author

The author has taught anthropology for over thirty years, retiring in 1989 as professor emeritus from the University of Alberta. He is the author of six books and numerous articles. He lives in Vernon, BC.

Other books by Harold Barclay:

Buurri al Lamaab, A Suburban Village in the Sudan (Cornell Univ. Press, 1964)

The Role of the Horse in Man's Culture (J.A. Allen, London, 1980)

Culture, the Human Way (Western Publs, Calgary, 1986)

(the above are out of print , but available second hand from Abebooks. com)

People without Government, An Anthropology of Anarchy (Kahn and Averill, London, 1982 and 1990)

Culture and Anarchism (Freedom Press, London, 1997)

The State (Freedom Press, London, 2003)