ABSTRACT
Throughout this book we have presented numerous comments, observations, suggestions, hypotheses and postulations. We need now to bring all this together and to summarize the main arguments. (For the reader who is tempted to begin with this section it should be clear that most of the points below assume that the main text has already been read.)
While the conclusions are based on our discussion of three specific groups of communities, they stand as possible spring-boards for a wider analysis of intentional communities. They are not presented as a formula for success or as a list of necessary conditions for persistence. Many of the following comments could be equally applied to other intentional communities, including those which were only shortlived, but cumulatively they have contributed to the persistence of the communities we have studied; they help us to understand the basis to their communality, the problems involved in sustaining it, and how they have overcome them.
