American Counterculture

Restricted to the shorthand of sex drugs and rock 'n' roll the counterculture would seem to be a brief vibrant stretch of the 1960s. But the American counterculture as this book clearly demonstrates was far more than a historical blip and its impact continues to resonate. In this comprehensive history Damon R. Bach traces the counterculture from its antecedents in the 1950s through its emergence and massive expansion in the 1960s to its demise in the 1970s and persistent echoes in the decades since. <p/>The counterculture as Bach tells it evolved in discrete stages and his book describes its development from coast to heartland to coast as it evolved into a national phenomenon involving a diverse array of participants and undergoing fundamental changes between 1965 and 1974. Hippiedom appears here in relationship to the era's movements--civil rights women's and gay liberation Red and Black Power the New Left and environmentalism. In its connection to other forces of the time Bach contends that the counterculture's central objective was to create a new superior society based on alternative values and institutions. Drawing for the first time on documents produced by self-described freaks from 1964 through 1973--underground newspapers memoirs personal correspondence flyers and pamphlets--his book creates an unusually nuanced colorful and complete picture of a time often portrayed in clichéd or nostalgic terms. <p/>This is the counterculture of love-ins and flower children of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane but also of antiwar demonstrations communes co-ops head shops cultural feminism Earth Day and antinuclear activism. What Damon R. Bach conjures is the counterculture in all of its permutations and ramifications as he illuminates its complexity continually evolving values and constantly changing components and adherents which defined and redefined it throughout its near decade-long existence. In the long run Bach convincingly argues that the counterculture spearheaded cultural transformation leaving a changed America in its wake.