From Library Journal
This deep and detailed work examines the many elements of the American counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. Its underlying theme is the rejection by mainly young but also older people of prevailing political, social, and cultural norms through experimentation with drugs, sex, music, and identity to construct alternative ways of life. The 14 essays, written by academics and journalists, are arranged into sections covering cultural politics, racial and sexual identity, the media and popular culture, the deconditioning of the human mind through drugs and feminist consciousness-raising, and alternative visions of society based on technology and communal living. Each section opens with a brief essay covering the major themes appearing in its chapters. Editors Braunstein and Doyle, who are both journalists, open the work with an excellent essay critical of both romantic and conservative views of the 1960s and stressing the need for strict historical analysis for a better understanding of the period. Particularly good essays include David Farber's study of drug use and David E. James's chapter on film. This is not an easy read, but it marks a major reexamination of the period. A good complement to The Sixties: From Meaning to History (Univ. of North Carolina, 1994) and Sights on the Sixties (Rutgers Univ., 1992. reprint); recommended for academic libraries. Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia Univ., Parkersburg
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Alice Echols
"This provocative collection helps to reveal the centrality of subcultures in American History since the 1950s."
