Gonzo Republic Hunter S. Thompson's America [Hardcover]

Gonzo Republic looks at Hunter S. Thompson's complex relationship
with America. Thompson was a patriot but also a stubborn individualist.
Stephenson examines the whole range of Thompson's work, from his early
reporting from the South American client states of the USA in the 1960s
to his twenty-first-century internet columns on sport, politics and 9/11.
Stephenson argues that Thompson inhabited, but was to some extent
reacting against, the tradition of American individualism begun by the Founding Fathers and continued by Emerson and Thoreau. Thompson sought out the edge-the threshold of chaos and insanity-in order to define himself. His characters enact the same quest, travelling through the surreal landscape of his literary America: the Gonzo Republic.

Acknowledgements1. Stepping into History: Values, Contexts, Influences 2. Riding with the Angels, Tripping in the Haight: Drugs, Authorities, Countercultures 3. Gonzo Fists, Guinea Worms and Freaks: the Political Circus 4. The Elusive American Dream; the Edge, the Lodge and the Frontier; Gonzo Sex and Gender 5. Bash the Buggers Silly; Bomb the Insane': Thompson and the American Empire 6. Conclusion: The Place of Definitions' Appendix One. Thompson on Film Appendix Two. The Gonzo Net Bibliography Index