I learned a lot from this book. At first I found the writing style to be frustrating, the English is difficult to follow and I was young when I started it. I persevered, got used to it, and found that I really came to appreciate how beautifully written this book is - but it's not for everyone

At times I found the history contained in this book to bring to life my imagination. Politically speaking, I like Bookchin's ideas (and the Anarchism/Municipalism that many of his fans adopt) - but I don't think that I found them as transformative for me as other authors - like David Graeber. For example, Bookchin valourises Ancient Athens a lot in this book, and seems to be describing it as an isolated event of mass democratisation. In the context of Graeber's Anarchist Anthropology I think that this is a needless concession to make, when the latter book opened my eyes to the diverse and far-reaching history of democratic practises around the world - and where Ancient Greece fits into that really (as a society which obsessively valued individual competition - which I'm not intending to be dismissive of the Ancient Greeks, they're great)

My favourite part of this book was the inclusion of Gerard Winstanley's poem, which years on I still go back to read often