Robert Burns- Rebels in the Wild

Rebels in the Wild: The Equality Colony and the Taming of American Capitalism tells the forgotten but still relevant story of the rise and fall of a radical experiment in socialism in the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the 20th century. Drawing on letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper reports, and court records, this book traces not just the life of the Equality colony in Skagit County, Washington, but also the lives of the agitators, rabble rousers, and ordinary men and women who created it. They were a quarrelsome bunch who believed capitalism was ripe for ruin but could agreed on little else.

At its core, this story reflects the timeless struggle to defend human dignity and the endless and essential search for a better way to organize society. The Equality colony failed, but in ways long lost in the American memory, the impulses that created it foreshadowed the birth of a social welfare state, the rejection of unconstrained capitalism, and a consensus on empowering government to promote the common good.

Robert Burns grew up in Stanwood and earned a journalism degree from the University of Washington in 1977. In a 45-year reporting career for the Associated Press, he covered some of the biggest stories of our time. From AP postings at home and abroad, he covered Wall Street, the White House, the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, European affairs, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For ten years he served as president of the Pentagon Press Association. He and his wife, Liz, have two grown children and live in Virginia.

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