The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift: Intellectual Barbarians

摘要

This is a beautiful and intriguing book that tells a fascinating story about a little-known form of alternative modernist design and craft practice. Published by the independent Donlon Books and written by Annebella Pollen as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded fellowship, it draws on numerous archival sources from public and private collections and includes over a hundred largely unseen images in black and white and colour. The book charts the origins, structure, philosophies, and legacy of the short-lived but influential Kibbo Kift (K.K.) group, an 'all-ages, co-educational and pacifist society for the promotion of camping and handicraft' whose ambitions, as Pollen's beautifully written, erudite, insightful, and often witty text informs us, went well beyond the simple pleasures of backwoodsmanship and open-air bathing to encompass the serious task of preparing 'body, mind and spirit' for the transformation of society and the world (pp. 23-24).