Imagine Nation

The counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s remains a highly controversial and divisive topic in our society; virtually the only thing that anyone can agree on is its enormous impact on American life. Critics on the right complain of the shattering of cherished social norms, while those on the left take many movements to task for not going far enough and selling out. Amidst the recent flourishing of 1960s scholarship, this volume focuses solely on the counterculture. Its 14 provocative essays seek to unearth the complexity and rediscover the society-changing power of significant movements and figures. The topics covered include feminism, psychedelic drug experimentation, guerrilla theatre, the New Left, Jimi Hendrix, communal living, underground comics, and avant-garde film. As a whole, the book offers new interpretations of how the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s irrevocably changed American society.

“"...a historically sound survey of US counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. All 13 new essays... are of unusually uniform quality and together offer a genuinely helpful, if not entirely satisfactory, overview...Strongly recommended for all academic collections." -- CHOICE, November 2002 "...a landmark study." -- Theodore Roszak, San FranciscoChronicle "...the essays do a fine job of showing the ways in which women, blacks, American Indians and gays lived out the full implications of challenging the subliminal assumptions of mainstream culture." -- Theodore Roszak, San Francisco Chronicle " Imagine Nation is an important corrective to the now-fashionable view that the counterculture represented little more than the further commodification of American society. This provocative collection helps to reveal theture centrality of subcultures in American history since the the 1950s." -- Alice Echols, Author of ShakyGround: Thests. Sixties and Its Aftershocks. "How thrilling to see the maelstrom of the Sixties subjectedd to trenchant analysis and its various ideologies andous expressions compared and contrasted. Thesetrasted. These scholar-detectives are so sensitive to the mind of the times that I suspect many saw action on the same streets I and my friends did. I think they got it right." -- Peter Coyote,the Actor and Writer, Author of Sleeping Where I Fall. "Imagine Nation is a much-needed antidote to the commodification of the ''60s and ''70s. Today''s twenty-something politicos are quick to embrace the era''s iconic images, long hair and mini skirts, Afros and peace signs, but not their deeper historical meanings. The essays here give us the meaning, the stories, the politics behind the culture, and offer insights into creating new countercultures for our time and place." -- Robin D.G. Kelley, Author of Yo'' Mama''s Disfunktional! "Imagine Nation is a juicy evocation of the Sixties, a decade that can never be recovered, only imagined-and this book imagines well." -- Richard Goldstein, Executive Editor, The Village Voice " Imagine Nation is an important corrective to the now-fashionable view that the counterculture represented little more than the further commodification of American society. This provocative collection helps to reveal the centrality of subcultures in American history since the the 1950s." -- Alice Echols, Author of Shaky Ground: TheSixties and Its Aftershocks. "How thrilling to see the maelstrom of the Sixties subjected to trenchant analysis and its various ideologies and expressions compared and contrasted. These scholar-detectives are so sensitive to the mind of the times that I suspect many saw action on the same streets I and my friends did. I think they got it right." -- Peter Coyote, Actor and Writer, Author of SleepingWhere I Fall. "Imagine Nation is a juicy evocation of the Sixties, a decade that can never be recovered, only imagined-and this book imagines well." -- Richard Goldstein, Executive Editor, The Village Voice "Imagine Nation is a much-needed antidote to the commodification of the ''60s and ''70s. Today''s twenty-something politicos are quick to embrace the era''s iconic images, long hair and mini skirts, Afros and peace signs, but not their deeper historical meanings. The essays here give us the meaning, the stories, the politics behind the culture, and offer insights into creating new countercultures for our time and place." -- Robin D.G. Kelley, Author of Yo'' Mama''s Disfunktional! "A dozen or so brainiacs have produced Imagine Nation: TheAmerican Counterculture of the 1960s & ''70s (Routledge), edited by Peter Braunstein and Michael William Doyle. It methodically repudiates the lame canards that the social and political movements of the ''60s were undemocratic or merely self-indulgent. Quite the opposite; they were animated by justice and communitarianism, and a direct response to everything from segregation and Vietnam to conformity and artlessness." -- High Times, Michael Simmons "Braunstein (journalist and independent scholar) and Doyle (Ball State Univ.) offer a historically sound survey of US counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s...Many of the chapters are likely to become assigned reading in courses on cultural history. Strongly recommended for all academic collections." -- K. Toloyan, Wesleyan University, for CHOICE”

"...a historically sound survey of US counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. All 13 new essays... are of unusually uniform quality and together offer a genuinely helpful, if not entirely satisfactory, overview...Strongly recommended for all academic collections." -- CHOICE, November 2002
"...a landmark study." -- Theodore Roszak, San FranciscoChronicle
"...the essays do a fine job of showing the ways in which women, blacks, American Indians and gays lived out the full implications of challenging the subliminal assumptions of mainstream culture." -- Theodore Roszak, San Francisco Chronicle
" Imagine Nation is an important corrective to the now-fashionable view that the counterculture represented little more than the further commodification of American society. This provocative collection helps to reveal theture centrality of subcultures in American history since the the 1950s." -- Alice Echols, Author of ShakyGround: Thests. Sixties and Its Aftershocks.
"How thrilling to see the maelstrom of the Sixties subjectedd to trenchant analysis and its various ideologies andous expressions compared and contrasted. Thesetrasted. These scholar-detectives are so sensitive to the mind of the times that I suspect many saw action on the same streets I and my friends did. I think they got it right." -- Peter Coyote,the Actor and Writer, Author of Sleeping Where I Fall.
"Imagine Nation is a much-needed antidote to the commodification of the '60s and '70s. Today's twenty-something politicos are quick to embrace the era's iconic images, long hair and mini skirts, Afros and peace signs, but not their deeper historical meanings. The essays here give us the meaning, the stories, the politics behind the culture, and offer insights into creating new countercultures for our time and place." -- Robin D.G. Kelley, Author of Yo' Mama's Disfunktional!
"Imagine Nation is a juicy evocation of the Sixties, a decade that can never be recovered, only imagined-and this book imagines well." -- Richard Goldstein, Executive Editor, The Village Voice
" Imagine Nation is an important corrective to the now-fashionable view that the counterculture represented little more than the further commodification of American society. This provocative collection helps to reveal the centrality of subcultures in American history since the the 1950s." -- Alice Echols, Author of Shaky Ground: TheSixties and Its Aftershocks.
"How thrilling to see the maelstrom of the Sixties subjected to trenchant analysis and its various ideologies and expressions compared and contrasted. These scholar-detectives are so sensitive to the mind of the times that I suspect many saw action on the same streets I and my friends did. I think they got it right." -- Peter Coyote, Actor and Writer, Author of SleepingWhere I Fall.
"Imagine Nation is a juicy evocation of the Sixties, a decade that can never be recovered, only imagined-and this book imagines well." -- Richard Goldstein, Executive Editor, The Village Voice
"Imagine Nation is a much-needed antidote to the commodification of the '60s and '70s. Today's twenty-something politicos are quick to embrace the era's iconic images, long hair and mini skirts, Afros and peace signs, but not their deeper historical meanings. The essays here give us the meaning, the stories, the politics behind the culture, and offer insights into creating new countercultures for our time and place." -- Robin D.G. Kelley, Author of Yo' Mama's Disfunktional!
"A dozen or so brainiacs have produced Imagine Nation: TheAmerican Counterculture of the 1960s & '70s (Routledge), edited by Peter Braunstein and Michael William Doyle. It methodically repudiates the lame canards that the social and political movements of the '60s were undemocratic or merely self-indulgent. Quite the opposite; they were animated by justice and communitarianism, and a direct response to everything from segregation and Vietnam to conformity and artlessness." -- High Times, Michael Simmons
"Braunstein (journalist and independent scholar) and Doyle (Ball State Univ.) offer a historically sound survey of US counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s...Many of the chapters are likely to become assigned reading in courses on cultural history. Strongly recommended for all academic collections." -- K. Toloyan, Wesleyan University, for CHOICE

Peter Braunstein is a journalist and cultural historian based in New York City. He writes about fashion, film, celebrity, the 1960s, music, technology, and pop culture for such publications as the Village Voice, Forbes,American Heritage, the Chronicle of Higher Education,Women's Wear Daily, W, and culturefront. He received his M.A. from New York University in 1992, having written a thesis on the Haight-Ashbury counterculture.
Michael William Doyle worked in the new-wave food co-op movement during the 1970s while living communally on an organic farm he helped found in Wisconsin. He went on to earn a B.A. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1989), and a Ph.D. at Cornell University (1997). He is currently Assistant Professor of History at Ball State University at Muncie, Indiana. He is the author of FreeRadicals: The Haight-Ashbury Diggers and the AmericanCounterculture in the 1960s.

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.

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