American Hippies [Hardcover]

This short overview of the United States hippie social movement examines hippie beliefs and practices.In the late 1960s and early 1970s hundreds of thousands of white middle-class American youths suddenly became hippies. This short overview of the hippie social movement in the United States examines the movement's beliefs and practices.In the late 1960s and early 1970s hundreds of thousands of white middle-class American youths suddenly became hippies. This short overview of the hippie social movement in the United States examines the movement's beliefs and practices.In the late 1960s and early 1970s hundreds of thousands of white middle-class American youths suddenly became hippies. This short overview of the hippie social movement in the United States examines the movement's beliefs and practices, including psychedelic drugs, casual sex, and rock music, as well as the phenomena of spiritual seeking, hostility to politics, and communes. W. J. Rorabaugh synthesizes how hippies strived for authenticity, expressed individualism, and yearned for community. Viewing the tumultuous Sixties from a new angle, Rorabaugh shows how the counterculture led to subsequent social and cultural changes in the United States with legacies including casual sex, natural foods, and even the personal computer.Introduction; 1. Origins; 2. Drugs, music, and spirituality; 3. Bodies, sex, and gender; 4. Diggers, Yippies, and People's Park, 5. Communes; Conclusion. W. J. Rorabaugh brings the clarity of close historical research to the colorful chaos of the counterculture. In the process, he helps both old and young readers gain a better understanding of the late sixties and early seventies.
Edward Berkowitz, George Washington University, Washington DC Rorabaugh's American Hippies is the most comprehensive account I know of the strange escape routes the young sought from a suffocating culture, and what happened when their search for another way of life landed them in a rich but morally l