A Living Revolution: Anarchism in Kibbutz Movement, by James Horrox. Oakland and Edinburgh: AK Press, 2009. 168 pp. $17.95. It would be hard to overstate importance of James Horrox's slim 2009 volume A Living Revolution: Anarchism in Kibbutz Movement. Given centrality of Israel's role in geopolitical landscape, as well as its obvious imbrications within larger workings of American military-industrial complex, any text that cogently highlights alternative narrative at heart of Israel's national ethos merits our critical attention. The fact that Horrox is able to accomplish this aim spectacularly and vividly in brief a treatment is testament not only to his evident mastery of subject matter, but also to indomitable spirit of anarchism - and in particular Jewish anarchism - he chronicles. Largely unknown to both its inhabitants and outsiders alike, modern state of Israel bears little resemblance to values held by most of early pioneers who started Jewish settlements in in late nineteenth century. By time first coherent settlement communities (kvutzot) were developed in early twentieth century, values of cooperation, voluntarism, agrarianism, and sustainability were already woven into ideological fabric of these nascent systems (p. 18). Concomitantly, working version of Zionism embraced by these pre-state pioneers devolved principally upon pacifism, anti-militarism, harmony with land, and peaceful coexistence with Arabic communities in region - with little concern for development of a nation-state (p. 27). Up to creation of Israeli state in 1948, this early vision crystallized into a federated network of autonomous communities (kibbutzim) predicated largely upon anarchist tenets of mutual aid, direct democracy, common property, horizontal power, and a radical egalitarianism that imbued all aspects of communal life from interpersonal relationships to political economy. As Horrox details in a rich historical analysis, the works of Kropotkin, Proudhon, Gordon, Tolstoy and Landauer were widely read and respected among kibbutz pioneers, and even more important, figures influential in shaping direction of movement embraced ideas of these thinkers and actively promoted realization of their ideology in Palestine (p. 61). The net effect was to engender creation of a web of organic communities based on trust, reciprocity, innovation, collectivism, and autonomy that effectively built an entire national infrastructure while simultaneously modeling perhaps most ideal exemplar of long-lasting anarchism in practice that modern world has seen (p. 87). And herein lies rub. The were successful at embodying proto-state ideal of infrastructural development that they became obvious (and essential) targets for both material and ideological cooptation at hands of those who would seek to consolidate state power after 1948. In no uncertain terms, Horrox describes how the dream pursued by early communards was systematically manipulated and hijacked by emerging Zionist institutions of state-to-be (p. 88), to such a complete extent that radicalism of early settlers has been either rewritten or altogether omitted from Israel's history books and educational centers. Moreover, many contemporary Israeli activists (including anarchists) often look upon with disdain, since in recent decades they have become so inextricably intertwined with Israeli state, and, in particular, its militaristic policies towards Palestinians - including fact that many of the country's fiercest fighters were drawn from kibbutzim (p. 116). As Horrox concludes, a creeping institutionalism and authoritarianism has fostered a situation in which the kibbutz is establishment for many Israeli youth (p. …