Barclay, Harold B. “Longing for Arcadia. Memoirs of an Anarcho-Cynicalist Anthropologist”. Trafford Books, Victoria BC, Canada. Pbk, ix, 362pp, illus.ISBN 1-41205679-9. (Printed on demand, price varies?)

I expect many people have read at least one of Harold Barclay's books on anarchism and anthropology. Based equally on his own field work and that of others he has shown that even in the modern world there are still societies which are structured without a recognisable state form, and they work. They make for for informative and entertaining reading and so it is interesting to read the story behind the fieldwork of the author of such works.

The sub-title suggests that the author has become something of a curmudgeon. In the sense that a curmudgeon is someone who opposes the world as it is, and is never satisfied with the progress being made to a better society, then the characterisation is unfair. I suspect Harold has has been a curmudgeon all his adult life, if this book is anything to go by.

The book is arranged chronologically, starting, as one might suspect, with his childhood – not a particularly happy one, school days definitely not being the happiest days of his life, without it actually being a catalogue of abuse or disasters. His parental background was small-town protestant in New England and spent his early years living in a small farm on the edge of suburbia. By the time he reached his teens he had already developed an interest in politics and at the age of 13 was writing to the local newspaper putting forth his ideas for a new political party. By 1938, aged around 14, he was advocating the workers control and ownership of industry, non-intervention in overseas conflict, compulsory social security and the running of agricultural processing, distribution and marketing by rural co-operatives, amongst other policies.

War loomed and young Harold, quite sensibly, wanted nothing to do with it, and ended up as a conscientious objector after leaving school to attend agricultural colleges. He saw out the war at various labour camps where he met with an interesting variety of other people resisting involvement with the war on both political and religious grounds. After the war he ended up taking a teaching course and undertaking some teaching but it proved not to his taste and he wound in 1949 attending Boston University to do an anthropology course, which he negotiated successfully, and also married his life partner, Jane, with whom he subsequently had 2 children.

There Harold embarked on what eventually turned out to be a successful academic career, initially in the United States and more latterly Canada, publishing both books and articles on anthropology, much of it based on his field work in Egypt and the Sudan. The accounts the author gives of the field trips undertaken for research purposes, show how difficult such research can be, as there numerous language and cultural barriers to the observer understanding what is being observed (and in matters of gender, being able to observe at all.) He also describes the inevitable political infighting that occurs in academia, which seems to have most intense in the highly politicised 1960s and 1970s.

However, what really makes the book is not these accounts but his tangential excursions into his own beliefs, experiences and comments on the locals. Besides the anthropological field work, Harold and Jane have been inveterate travellers in their spare time as well. Harold has done all 51 of the US of America and has travelled much of the world, something which continued into his retirement years. Being effectively a self-published book, the author has no editor breathing down his neck for what might be construed as non-PC views of the world and its inhabitants. Not that Harold is racist, indeed he has championed a non-racist approach to anthropology, but equally he is rather fond of the sweeping generalisation, e.g.

“I have noticed with other activities involving the British that the main focus is not enjoyment, but rather the following a lot of strict rules and regulations. This is what happens with British pony and horse type organisations.” (p.97)

Indeed he is quite happy to take a few pages out to explain what anarchism means to him, his religious beliefs (or lack thereof), the position on mind-body dualism and so forth. He is also very forthcoming about his family, one notes a distinct annoyance that neither of his children have had offspring, although in his take on the “meaning of life” at a rational level, it matters little. He is, however very proud of his daughter's academic achievements (she has a Ph.D., just like her Dad), but son Alan merely teaches creative writing and has yet to produce his first novel. He devotes several pages to the relationship he had with his horse, Coral, who sadly died a couple of years ago. The family's cats, barely warrant a mention in comparison, but then they are his wife's concern.

The book is rather let down in a couple of ways. Firstly the lack of proper proof reading means there's rather too many punctuation mistakes or unnecessary gaps – hopefully the text can be revised for future printings. The book also lacks an index, which makes finding anything a pain and one would have thought that an academic might have put a complete list of publications (articles and books) at the back for anyone wanting to read them – although he does mention most of his books somewhere in the text (apparently the Greek government found his book on “People Without Government” worthy of banning – they may have given us the word “Anarchy” but didn't want their people reading about it!) Another aside, Harold comment on the German language is quite droll: “That English may be a more efficient mode of communication is shown by the fact that the German edition took 293 pages ... while the English was only version was 162 pages.”

Overall it makes for fascinating and entertaining reading. The large print size means that the pages fly by quite quickly and the strong narrative thread gives it enough structure to withstand his frequent digressions into life, the universe and everything. There's no price given on the book, and being print-on-demand I suspect it may vary with the cost of paper, exchange rates etc.

A fitting testament to a life which, despite his own expectations, turns out to have been both worthwhile for himself and his family but for the rest of us as well.