It is not a rosy picture, this story of the checkered fate of cooperatives in America. But against the history of cooperatives elsewhere, starting in England with Owen and the Rochdale Pioneers, and extending to other countries, one feels there must be a way for us, too. The author lays the responsibility for American failures to overanxiousness, reaching out too fast, stressing producer cooperatives at the expense of consumer cooperatives. But he has faith -- and vision -- and challenges his readers to choosing the cooperative way instead of dictatorship, fascism or communism. All men are consumers. On that basis build.