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Counterculture

The Story of America from Bohemia to Hip-Hop

Author Alex Zamalin

Hardcover

$32.00 US

Beacon Press

On sale Feb 04, 2025 | 296 Pages | 9780807045183

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A political and intellectual history of American counterculture and the historical figures who redefined mainstream understandings of freedom, culture, art, and politics—from The Beat Generation to Basquiat

This entertaining, intellectual history fulfills the growing appetite for marginalized narratives. Counterculture brilliantly interrogates the diversity of counterculture and the interwoven relationship between each individual legacy. From Anarchism to the Harlem Renaissance, Alex Zamalin unveils the humanity behind these romanticized figures and popularized movements to capture revolutionary freedom in action.

American counterculture, defined as a movement whose values are outside and oppositional to mainstream norms and whose practices fundamentally reject what is socially respectable, ultimately transformed the 20th century.

With key players:

Emma Goldman
Billie Holiday
Allen Ginsberg
Amiri Baraka
Jean-Michel Basquiat

And key movements:

Anarchism
Black Bohemia
The Harlem Renaissance
The Beat Generation
The Black Arts Movement
Hip-Hop

Counterculture reaches new depths, tackling a wide range of historical, social, and political topics, and expanding contemporary understandings of American cultural tradition.

At a time when counterculture was on the outskirts of American society, Alex Zamalin explores the reason why.

Introduction

CHAPTER 1
I Contain Multitudes

CHAPTER 2
Rebel Misfits

CHAPTER 3
Patrons of the Revolution

CHAPTER 4
Beloved Communities

CHAPTER 5
Lost and Found

CHAPTER 6
Fruits of Splendor

CHAPTER 7
Prophets of the Living and the Dead

CHAPTER 8
Flowers or Power?

CHAPTER 9
New Arc

CHAPTER 10
Silence Will Not Protect You

CHAPTER 11
The Message

Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Alex Zamalin is Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. He’s an internationally recognized expert on American culture, political theory, and African American politics with six previously published titles. Zamalin is also a regular guest on NPR as well as an invited lecturer at various institutions on issues relating to antiracism, diversity, and culture. He holds a B.A. from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center.

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“Zamalin approaches these countercultures from multiple perspectives so that his book is not only the white, male, heteronormative history of the movements but a more inclusive account. VERDICT: A good introduction to the process of culture making in the 20th century.”
—Library Journal

“Zamalin demonstrates incontestably why he is considered unequivocally to be our premier cultural historian.”
—Gerald Horne, author of Armed Struggle? Panthers and Communists, Black Nationalists and Liberals in Southern California Through the Sixties and Seventies

“Counterculture is a brilliant text. Zamalin’s agile mind creates connections that we did not know existed. From Emma Goldman to Amiri Baraka, this book is an expertly woven tapestry of radical, marginalized cultures and movements and the ways in which they have built upon one another. A necessary book that fills a gap in our collective history. At a time when it feels like hope is in short supply, this book is a necessary corrective: a reminder that the struggle is always ongoing.”
—Dave Zirin, author of The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World

“Zamalin provides an engaging, well-researched, and immersive set of readings to shift our thinking about American countercultures. Zamalin connects dots we might not expect, across lines of race, gender, sexuality, and class, and in the process brings new life and power to a concept that has too often been dismissed as fringe and frivolous.”
—John Keene, author of Punks: New & Selected Poems

“Zamalin celebrates the legacy of so many people who dared to ask ‘What if?’ and who left the powerful legacies celebrated here. What do you want your own legacy to be? How will future generations celebrate you?”
—Rob Hopkins, author of From What Is to What If

“Counterculture brings much-needed historical depth to contemporary debates about the meaning of American democracy.”
—Jackson Lears, author of Animal Spirits: The American Pursuit of Vitality from Camp Meeting to Wall Street

“Zamalin reminds us that countercultures can be, and throughout history have been, more than a lifestyle choice or a market to exploit: they are platforms for experimentation with radical new ways of being, feeling, thinking, and acting. Counterculture, and the stories of the cultural rebels it tells so well, are the necessary antidote to convention, no matter what its ideology.”
—Stephen Duncombe, author of Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy