This book explores the trans-Atlantic history of Protestant traditions of communalism ¿
communities of shared property. The sixteenth-century Reformation may have destroyed
monasticism in northern Europe but Protestant Christianity has not always denied common
property. Between 1650 and 1850 a range of Protestant groups adopted communal goods
frequently after crossing the Atlantic to North America: the Ephrata community the Shakers
the Harmony Society the Community of True Inspiration and others. Early Mormonism also
developed with a communal dimension challenging its surrounding Protestant culture of
individualism and the free market. In a series of focussed and survey studies this book
recovers the trans-Atlantic networks and narratives ideas and influences which shaped
Protestant communalism across two centuries of early modernity.
