Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960's and 70's

Amidst the recent flourishing of Sixties scholarship, Imagine Nation is the first collection to focus solely on the counterculture. Its fourteen provocative essays seek to unearth the complexity and rediscover the society-changing power of significant movements and figures.

Customer Reviews:

A HAPPENING - Bittersweet Adolescence of a Nation

By Pam Hanna "wind star" - July 24, 2002

This book took me weeks to read, not because it was dull but because the copious footnotes at the end of each of the 14 excellent essays demanded investigation. The essays complement one another to present a more complete and cogent view of the antecedents and realities of the counterculture than any other volume I have yet seen on the subject.Counterculture names, say Braunstein and Doyle, "...hippies, freaks, Flower Children, urban guerillas, orphans of Amerikka - underscores the degree to which Sixties cultural radicals had a revolving-door approach to identity, appropriating and shedding roles and personas at a dizzying pace." In these pages, the roles and personas in cultural politics, race, sex, the media (especially music, film and fashion), drugs, feminism, environmentalism and alternative visions of community and technology are thoroughly investigated."Unlike subcultures," says Marilyn Young in the foreword, "...a contraculture aspires to transform values and mores of... read more

Wonderful Book Of Essays On The Counterculture!

By Barron Laycock "Labradorman" - January 14, 2004

One of the most fascinating artifacts arising in the midst of the turbulent 1960s was the creation and promulgation of a new subculture in the shadow of the mainstream material culture, one that had quite different aspects to its lifestyle, including a different set of predominating social, economic and political perspectives, experiences, and perspectives. In the main the thrust of the counterculture, as it came to be known, was a rabid rejection of the ethos, perspectives, and behaviors of the mainstream culture, including its meaningless materialism, its warlike nature, and its xenophobia about anyone different. In this terrific book edited by Peter Braunstein and Michael William Doyle, we are presented with fourteen wonderful essays written by scholarly eyewitnesses to the phenomenon. These are arranged into several sections according to chapters dealing with popular culture, the media, the use of drugs to free oneself of predominating cultural baggage, social and cultural... read more

Great read

By C?sar Ch?vez "Tax the Rich... free the poor." - January 1, 2012

14 essays written by different academics, covering a wide variety of topics pertaining to the radical counterculture of the '60's. Don't be intimidated by the fact that the book is written by professors; if you graduated high school you'll be able to read it, and you'll wish this type of fascinating history was covered in those boring high school social studies classes you dreaded. While it's also fun to read the hazy memories of '60's participants, this book is unique in that facts have been documented with footnotes. Do not let this lead you to believe, however, that footnotes = boring, dry reading... not true in this case.