Hippie - Softcover

Barry Miles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1844031926 ISBN 13: 9781844031924

Publisher: Cassell Illustrated, 2003

Synopsis

Through the words of those who embraced the lifestyle and fantastic illustrations letting the whole hang out, this book immerses you in the Hippies movement of the late 60s and early 70s. It takes the reader through the fashion, philosophy, music, literature, films and politics of the Hippie ideal, tracing its growth from the Beats in the 1950s (and with a brief nod to the Bloomsbury Set of the 1920s), to the peace-demanding flower children of the Vietnam years. Portraits of the main men and women sit alongside the tales of those who hugged and those who shrugged at this culture and its preaching of colour, calm and happiness. Reminiscences and experiences are provided by (among others): Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, Ossie Clark, Tariq Ali, Peter and Jane Fonda, Janis Joplin, Richard Branson, Germaine Greer, Jerry Garcia, De La Soul, Ben and Jerry and Reverend Jesse Jackson.

About this title

About the Author:

Barry Miles is a respected chronicler of the Beat generation and 1960s culture. His autobiography in The Sixties was published in October 2002. He has written biographies of, among others, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. He also recently wrote Paul MacCartney's Blackbird and the UK section of Let Me Take You Higher for Chronicle (in association with the Rock Music Hall of Fame). He worked for The Beatles Apple organisation in the late 1960s and was the founder of the international Times.

From Booklist:

The watershed 1960s can be gloriously re-experienced in the pages of this magnificent, oversize volume. The swinging '60s will live forever for the boomers who came of age in that decade; for their parents, who, at the time, felt uncomfortable with the abrupt shifts they observed in values and attitudes (to say nothing of dress); and now for their children, who listen to the rock music of that era and wonder, Was it really all that cool? Miles uses the hippie as a metaphor for the whole cultural experience of the 1960s and its impact on American--no, world--political and social life. As is so graphically documented here, the hippie was the epitome of the youth culture and very much defined the times. This was the great era of protest; hippies stood outside society, and, from that vantage point, they offered both valid and off-the-wall criticism. This luscious book, its textual accompaniment as spirited as its bounty of dynamic illustrations (including candid photos, album covers, and publicity shots), establishes the wide social boundaries of the movement--from antiwar activities to fashion and music and cinema--and spotlights the individuals most important to the counterculture, from Bob Dylan to Jim Morrison, from Ken Kesey to Abbie Hoffman. And, of course, the new-arrivals-display potential of this book in the public library is rich and varied. Wayne Koestenbaum's biography Andy Warhol (2001) could be set beside it as collateral reading, as could Bruce Spizer's The Beatles Are Coming! (2004) and the Autobiography of Martin Luther King (1998), a collection of King's writings. Also, don't forget to use books and even actual artifacts pertaining to gay liberation, fashions of the time, cinema, and all other aspects of distinctive '60s culture. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Cassell Illustrated
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1844031926
• ISBN 13: 9781844031924
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384